KTR releases ITEC Dept's annual report

Hyderabad : Information Technology Minister K. Tarakarama Rao on Friday release the annual report 2017-18 of the Information Technology, Electronics and Communications Department. This annual report marks the fourth year of the IT Department’s practice of putting its activities and accomplishments in the public domain and bringing in new standards of transparency and accountability into Governance.
 
Telangana’s IT exports have been growing at a Cumulative Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.6% since its formation. This is roughly 150% of the national average during the same period, with India growing at an annual rate of 10.3%. This unprecedented growth has resulted in the creation of over 1.5 lakh new IT jobs since 2014. A few salient highlights of this year are as follows-
 
T-Wallet - With the aim of developing a complete ecosystem of cashless transactions in the state, T-Wallet has been integrated with the services of more than 10 departments. Today, with a user base of over 3.4 Lakhs and with financial transaction volumes crossing well beyond INR 221 Cr, T-Wallet is the single largest used payment application developed by any state govt.
 
T-App Folio - With the intent to bring governance to the fingertips of every citizen, T-Wallet is a single stop providing access to more than 160 G2C, B2C, and information services. Having recorded close to 2 Lakh downloads within 3 months of its launch, this key m-Governance initiative promises to grow even more rapidly and overcome any hurdle that one could face while availing government services.
 
T-Fibre - Through the Technology Demonstration Network (TDN), the ITE&C Department has successfully demonstrated the capabilities of T-Fiber in 4 villages of Maheshwaram Mandal in Rangareddy District. With the ability to deliver speeds upto 1 GBPS, T-Fiber shall soon bring the benefits of technology enabled programs in areas such as education, healthcare, agriculture, etc. to each and every household in the state.
 
Innovation Cell - Another unique initiative that the department has launched this year is the Telangana State Innovation Cell. The mandate for the Innovation Cell is three-fold: to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the entire State, to promote innovation within Govt. departments and organizations, and lastly, to build culture of innovation early on, right from school stage.
 
WE-Hub - WE-Hub has seen tremendous response with over 300 startups run by women entrepreneurs applying to be part of its incubation program. The first cohort is expected to commence this month.
 
The Minister also touched upon major events hosted by Hyderabad. During the last one year, Hyderabad has grown significantly to solidify its position on the global economic map. Having hosted the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), World Congress on Information Technology, and National Conference on eGovernance, Hyderabad stands as the preferred global destination for conferences and meetings.
 
The event also witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Government of Telangana and Data Security Council of India to set up a Centre of Excellence on Cyber security in Hyderabad. This CoE, the first of its kind in India, will focus on creating an ecosystem for cyber security R&D, product development, capacity building, and innovation.
 
The Annual Report launch event, in addition to recounting achievements of the last year, also saw launch of several new initiatives aligned with the vision of Digital Telangana. The Minister launched four major initiatives of Government of Telangana, namely, T-Web, TASK Mobile VAN T-SOC, T-SWAN, and TSTS ABAS.
 
Telangana Security Operations Centre, or T-SOC aims to secure the government data and critical infrastructure using state-of-art threat detection and response capabilities by setting up a Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) solution. In phase-1 of T-SOC, entire infrastructure of State Data Centre (SDC) and Secretariat Area Network (SCAN) has been integrated with T-SOC.
 
Telangana State Wide Network, or T-SWAN, marks major upgradation in the erstwhile SWAN infrastructure of Telangana. Under T-SWAN, the broadband connectivity at District HQs, and Mandal HQs has been enhanced significantly in a short span of 6 months from October 2017. The HQs of all 31 districts (earlier, 10) have been provided with 34 Mbps internet connection along with a 20 Mbps (earlier 12 Mbps) dedicated intranet connection. More importantly, the connectivity to old and new Mandal HQs has been improved from 4 Mbps to 12 Mbps bandwidth. The beneficiaries of a 200% increase in bandwidth include more than 46 government departments and 101 sub departments, MeeSeva Centres and other online services.
 
In a first of its kind implementation, Telangana State Technology Services has developed an Aadhaar based Attendance System, called TSTS ABAS providing all three critical components for an effective biometric based attendance system i.e. Device, Connectivity and authentication solution. Through a soft launch earlier this year, the solution has already been implemented for Students of JNTU, GHMC Sanitary workers, Property Registration, Board of Intermediate education etc. and is witnessing around 1 lakh authentications every day. The initiative is a key step towards Digital Governance.
 
Electronic Service Delivery is continuously looking for avenues to improve the incomes of the Mee Seva Franchsiees. As part of this ESD signed an MoU with IFFCO BAZAR, a leading e-commerce portal for agricultural inputs. Under this MoU, the farmers will be able to access IFFCO Bazar, through MeeSeva Centres, to purchase and get home delivery of agricultural inputs at no additional cost. Mee Seva Franchisees will get additional income paid by IFFCO. This is a first of its kind initiative in the country wherein the farmers can use assisted online service of Mee Seva to buy agricultural inputs through on line.
 
The Minister concluded by saying that 2017-18 has been a phenomenal year for the ITE&C Department with numerous initiatives taking off and shaping up really well. The progress seen this year and the numerous new initiatives undertaken have laid a very strong foundation to achieve even greater results in the years to come. Internally the IT Department has set very ambitious targets for itself the coming year in its pursuit to cement Telangana’s positions as the go-to destination for technology across the globe.
 
T-Web Project Launched
 
The Minister and Chief Secretary SK Joshi launched T-Web Project (URL: https://tweb.telangana.gov.in/), an ITE&C Department initiative, with an objective to make Telangana Govt. Websites usable, uniform, user-friendly and universally accessible.