Page 47 - PR COMMUNICATION AGE July - December 2020

Online e-Sign (e-Hastakshar) infrastructure components of the National e-Governance
One of the initiatives taken under Digital India Programme Plan (NeGP) of Govt. of India. Under the SWAN scheme, it
is to provide non-repudiable authentication of applicant’s was proposed to establish State Wide Area Networks across
identity through a facility called e-Sign. e-Sign is an online the 35 States/UTs so that a common secure IT infrastructure
electronic signature service, which can be integrated with can be created to enable seamless delivery of Government
service delivery applications via an Application to Government (G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C) and
Programming Interface (API) to facilitate an e-Sign user, to Government to Business (G2B) services.
digitally sign a document. Using authentication of the
Aadhaar holder through Aadhaar e-KYC service, online SWAN envisaged as the Converged Backbone Network for
electronic signature service is facilitated. data, voice and video communications throughout a State/
UT and has catered to the information communication
e-Sign service facilitates instant signing of documents online requirements of various Government departments by
by citizens in a legally acceptable form. The services are being extending connectivity up to the block level.
leveraged by various applications such as National Informatics
Centre (NIC), Digital Locker, Directorate General of Human The Scheme for establishing State Wide Area Network
Resource Development (DGHR), Department of Panchayati (SWAN) across the country was approved to connect all
Raj & Rural Development of Andhra Pradesh Government, State/UT’s Headquarters up to the Block level via District/
Uttar Pradesh Forest and Wildlife Deptt, Government sub-Divisional Headquarters, in a vertical hierarchical
agencies for internal office uses. structure with a minimum bandwidth capacity of 10 Mbps
per link. Each of the States/UTs could enhance the
Notification of Electronic Signature or Electronic bandwidth up to 34-100 Mbps between SHQ and DHQs and
Authentication Technique and Procedure Rules, 2015, in upto 8-10 Mbps between DHQs and BHQs depending upon
which the technique known as ‘e-authentication technique, the utilization.
using Aadhaar e-KYC services’ for the e-Sign Online Service
was introduced, which allows everyone to have the ability Government Approval for the SWAN scheme in the country
to digitally sign electronic documents. Recently, CCA has with an overall outlay of Rs. 3,334 crore, (MeitY’s Grant-
released e-Sign 3.0 specifications based on Aadhaar offline
In-Aid component being Rs.2005 crore and ACA components
eKYC, wherein XML is enabling offline mode for obtaining Rs.1329 crore) was to be expanded in five years. To
eKYC. This requires one-time registration between e-Sign
user and e-Sign Service Provider and supports two factor facilitate smooth and time bound implementation, policy
authentication while e-Signing. guidelines were formulated, addressing various issues
related to planning and implementation of the SWAN
Achievements scheme, including roles and responsibilities of different
• C-DAC’s e-Sign Service (e-Hastakshar) enables an agencies/stakeholders.
Aadhaar holder, with registered mobile number with
Aadhaar, to electronically sign a form/document Presently, SWAN has been made operational in 34 States/
anytime and anywhere using a device. UTs. The States/UTs are utilising the core infrastructure of
SWAN for providing the Closed User Group (CUG)
• Staging environment of e-Sign 3.0 is released to ASPs
connectivity to various Government offices in the State/UTs.
in October 2019.
These offices access their applications through SWAN in
• During the year, C-DAC carried out integration with secured environment hosted at State Data Centres (SDCs).
various Government and private agencies for
leveraging e-Sign service at Production level and 96.73 The States have been utilising the core infrastructure of
lakh signatures have been generated till 31st December SWAN for connectivity and dedicated close user application
2019. access connectivity. SWAN has been integrated with NKN
• Internal monitoring of service parameters pertaining in 29 States/UTs at SHQ level and 540 Districts at the DHQ
to applications has been enabled using Dashboard for level to provide the high bandwidth.
Client Interface Team.
Increasing digitisation amongst states has led to higher
State Wide Area Network (SWAN) utilization of bandwidth. Presently, 30 States/UTs are
State Wide Area Network (SWAN) is one of the core utilizing around 70-72 % of bandwidth of the existing link

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