In a major initiative, a National Data Centre (NDC) would be set up at Amingaon near Guwahati at a cost of Rs 350 crore to fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modis dream of ‘Digital North Eastern India – Vision 2022, officials said on Friday.
An Assam government official said that the NDC with its cutting-edge Information Communication Technology (ICT) Cloud platform and data repository comes as a great digital boon for the eight northeastern states — Arunachal, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.
The state-of-art NDC-NER (North Eastern Region), which would be established by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), would come with an integrated network hub centre and integrated security operations centre.
“Besides serving as the hub for all digital initiatives of the northeastern states, it would provide the required impetus for increase in use of e-governance services, geo-spatial applications and development related activities. In addition, there will be confidentiality and strategic control of data as well,” the official said.
An official release of Assam government said that Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, along with Assam Chief Minister Sarbananada Sonowal are expected to soon participate in the ‘bhoomi pooja’ for setting up the NDC-NER for which 43,200 square feet of prime land has allotted at Amingaon on the outskirts of Guwahati.
The required funds for the project would be provided by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The estimated cost for the data centre includes three years of operational support.
The release said that the NDC-NER would impart much-needed momentum in terms of digital infrastructure to the northeast to live up to the Prime Minister’s expectations expressed in the ‘Digital North Eastern India – Vision 2022′ conclave held in Guwahati in 2018.
With the increasing preference for Cloud-based online applications, it would go a long way in making the northeast an integral part of the Digital India growth story by providing the region with its own Cloud platform to further and fast track its developmental initiatives.
A digital infrastructure of its nature and scope is expected to be a ‘core utility’ to enable the delivery of services in an efficient and inclusive manner to every citizen, the statement said.
“Such a facility has huge potential for technology, skill development and employment. Additionally, the NDC would act as a disaster recovery site for applications hosted in other NIC data centres in the country. With a scalable capacity of more than 200 server racks, it would provide the northeast region the ability to leverage high-end connectivity, on-demand Cloud infrastructure and secure data hosting, processing and data management,” the release added.
The NDC-NER, to be set up within a period of 31 months, would be equipped with all requisite paraphernalia such as uninterrupted power supply, solar power, cooling systems, physical and cyber security, backup systems, and ICT hardware and software.
