Sachivalaya's telecom network rings alarm

GANDHINAGAR: In an ambitious plan, the Gujarat government is all set to expand its Sachivalaya Integrated Telecom Network, meant for internal communication between Gandhinagar's government offices, to all government offices across the state.

Well-placed Sachivalaya officials said, once established, it would make landline telephone calls between all offices, ranging from Sachivalaya in Gandhinagar to 26 districts, and later to 225 taluka-level offices, including voice, data and video chat, "thoroughly free."

The upgradation

While the upgradation would mean new research, already, insiders suspect something fishy. They say, it would mean "easy interception" of communication between officials, "as the network shall be fully digitalized and servers shall route the voice and other data."

Particularly, the upgradation of the 'secure from outside world' network in the election year has particularly raised hackles. A babu, on the condition of anonymity, said that even today most officers prefer to communicate with each other through their cellphones or rather than use free of charge desktop phones. "The present system was set up in 2002. We are selective in the words we use and information we convey through the internal network", he underlined.

Several companies, including SIS, HCL, HP, Tulip, and AGC are learnt to have evinced interest in taking up the project. Top international firms like CISCO, Avaya and Huawei are keen to provide the research required. The whole project may take about five months to implement, once tenders are floated and finalised.

"We have called for expression of interest. It would mean a saving of anywhere between Rs 90 and 100 crore, currently going into communication internally", a senior government official told TOI.

"Currently, only telephone conversation between government offices only in Gandhinagar -- both in New Sachivalaya and Old Sachivalaya -- alone is free. The government does not have to pay anything to any of the landline telecom service providers", he added. Few outsiders know that Gujarat's department of science and innovation operates an exchange at the ground floor at Vidhan Sabha building, situated in New Sachivalaya premises, which through its 8,000 lines makes communication possible within the government quarters in the state Capital. There are very few lines leased from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd channelizes external calls both ways.

"All outside service providers like BSNL, Airtel and Tatas, are connected with the internal telecom network. The PABX in Vidhan Sabha building does rest of the job of transferring calls to respective offices. Only phone calls made to the outside world are chargeable. There are no charges for internal calls. During Tulip does the operation and maintenance job, PCS does 24 hour check as an internal auditor to ensure security. This wil now to extended to the whole of Gujarat's offices", the official said.