India's sixth national data centre is being constructed at North Guwahati by the National Informatics Centre ( NIC) to boost the e- governance scenario in the entire northeastern region.
The North East Regional Data Centre (NERDC) will host the e-governance initiatives specifically for the North Eastern states. Optimal utilisation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and manpower would be the major outcomes of this initiative. It will also comprise an integrated network hub centre, an integrated security operation and an integrated centre of excellence for application security, all under the same roof.
It is fully funded by the Central Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Assam PWD and Building division has been entrusted to finish the construction works by 2022. The Assam Government has allotted 3 bighas of land to NIC at North Guwahati for the state-of-the-art project.
"The data centre services are critical in nature and are required to be available 24x7. This not only requires service and support for the equipment but also skilled manpower to run the 24x7 operations. There is a sizable cost associated with the operation and maintenance of the data centre," a senior NIC official said.
"In order to make the Data Centre self-sustainable, it is proposed to offer colocation and cloud services on paid basis," he added.
The initial capital investment of Rs. 348.66 crore will be borne by the Central Government. It includes construction of the building, deployment of basic infrastructure and ICT equipment.
The NERDC is expected to accelerate socio-economic growth of the region, enable ‘ease of doing business’ and provide enough opportunities to the people and businesses of the North-east to interact progressively.
NIC has already established National Data Centres at Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and Bhubaneswar.
