E - Governance Initiatives in Himachal Pradesh :

A major portion of HP’s geography has a hilly terrain. It’s a challenging to pull the fibre optics cable infrastructure in those areas and thus, 165 Panchayats, which are in the hilly area, will be covered through VSAT(Very Small Aperture Terminal) instead of optical fiber. In the plains, the optical fibre will not be underground but will be overlaid on electrical poles. Himachal Pradesh has the best electrical poles network in the country. The state was 98 per cent electrified in the year 1985.Whereas 95 per cent of Phase I implementation of Bharat Net is completed, which amounts to 270 panchayats. Also HIMSWAN network is upgraded to higher bandwidth to cater the demand of new applications.

IT Department has taken various initiatives to generate jobs in the State. New Projects are initiated and implemented e.g. C.M Helpline , Wifi Choupal and expansion of existing SDC , HIMAWAN , CSC etc. In line to various initiatives from central , State has also implemented Start-up policy to encourage young entrepreneurs to start their own business. In close co-ordination with STPI, DIT has setup IT Parks with Plug and Play facility.

CM Help line : Tender process has been completed and vendor is shortlisted for implementation.  CM Help line will be a single platform for all the public grievances redressal and information services in the State.

HIMSWAN: Under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), State Wide Area Network (SWAN) has been identified as an element of the core infrastructure for supporting various e-Governance initiatives. The scope of project is to provide connectivity to Government Offices and Integrated Community Service Centres at State, District, Sub-Divisional, Tehsil and Block headquarters in Himachal Pradesh. HIMSWAN has been designed in such a way that it is expandable in future vertically (i.e. down to the Panchayat/ Village level) to cover Common Service Centres (CSCs) and horizontally (i.e. all offices/ locations within the same location).
The Department of IT, Himachal Pradesh has designated Society for Promotion of IT and e-Governance (SITEG) (Society for Promotion of IT and E-Governance (SITEG))as the implementing agency. The State Government through its agency will act as facilitator for implementing the project and subsequently provide horizontal connectivity to various Government Departments. Besides providing policy, regulatory and other support, State will provide site for HIMSWAN PoPs ( point of presence ) and identify the applications to be deployed over SWAN. Government of India will release funds to SITEG for the whole project (as per MIT guidelines) for a period of five years

Command and Control Centre: To make Himachal safer, the State government is setting up a State level hi-tech command and control centre. The major stake holders are Police, PWD, HPSEBL, MC Shimla and Smart City Shimla

E-District : As of today 59 G2C services are available on line .Work is in progress for 136 more G2C services on e-District portal which would act as a single online platform to take government services to the people.

IT Parks : Government in Process to develop 3 IT Parks in State for investment and employment.

Project Bhoomi: to enable the online records of land data to enhance the tranparency and citizen can also see their land records. it will be helpful to redress the issue of lands measuring that dgta cannot be changed like many time happens in paper records.

Integrated Enterprise Architecture (in sync with IndEA): State government is adopting IndEA frame work, as defined by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology MeitY. This will be an interoperable and cost effective solution. Creating “Integrated Enterprise Architecture” from data exchange layer so that footfall is reduced in government offices, information flows smoothly between departments and citizens, manual interventions are reduced and efficiency is increased and Governance became certificate less.

e-Office : e-Office is being implemented to create less paper environment in Government Offices.34 Departments are using e-Office and work in progress for 20 more departments.

Digital Locker: The State is no. 1 Digi Locker Issuer in the Country, Completed Ration Cards, Parivar Register, 10th and 12th Marksheets , Certificates of Revenue Department , Vehicle registration certificate, Driving licenses, Aadhaar cards etc are available to the citizens of the state on Digilocker.

Himachal provides ample scope for development of Electronics and IT / ITeS sector in the region. The State has the proximity to a well-developed city i.e. Chandigarh / Mohali . Department has identified the following focus areas keeping in mind the end customer requirement and potential growth. These are - Business Process Outsourcing, Software Development, Incubation Hub, Artificial Intelligence, Data Centre Setup, Research and Development etc.