By 360 Magazine Staff
Mumbai, Jun 27, 2006

One of the most populous cities in the state of Uttaranchal, Haldwani, in Nainital District, is also a fast evolving IT hub with 100-200 vendors having an indirect presence. Little surprising therefore that the recent Yatra meet became a leveraging platform for both the vendors and the resellers.

Twenty-seven channel partners attended the event, which was presided by Seagate, Logitech and Trend Micro.

Parveen Sharma, channel manager, Delhi & NCR, Logitech, said, “The channel partners in Haldwani were keen to know about the vendors’ prospects and plans for the city. Seeing the growing IT potential of this city we plan to bring our retail program in the city. A Nainital-based partner has already shown readiness to become the first retail partner for Logitech’s peripheral program. We plan to invest on partners for brand-awareness programs and promotions.” The vendor plans to appoint three more new partners by the end of this year.

The Home segment is the major IT buyer in Haldwani followed by educational institutes and the corporates. Haldwani, which is the second biggest city in Uttaranchal after its capital Dehradun, sells 200-300 volumes of PCs in a month and the laptop business is also witnessing rapid growth. According to the resellers, Trend Micro was new to the channel as Macfee and Norton are the fast-selling antivirus software in the city.

Ironically, despite its growing IT market, none of the major vendors have their service centers here. Charu Mainali, properitor, Ace infotech, said, “Haldwani partners feel neglected as none of the vendors including Seagate, Logitech and HCL have their service centere in the city. And for any customer complaints we have to take the default product either to Delhi or Dehradun and all the expences have to be borne by the partners only.”

Another matter of concern for the channel community is their unorganized nature due to which they are susceptible to fly-by-night operators. “Last year two cases of cheating came to light and more than 12 partners were duped to the tune of Rs 20 lakh, but no serious effort has been taken in this direction. The partners lack unity and never think of forming an association,” Mainali said.

Summing up the general sentiment, Ashwani Bansal, proprietor, Comnet Sales, said, “Today’s Yatra has brought many new products and technolgies, and a new perspective, which will definitely give us an edge in our business.”

News Source: http://www.channeltimes.com

Our Regional Bureau / New Delhi/ Dehra Dun, 22 Jun 2006

Gold Plus Glass Industry to set up Rs 400-cr unit

Several top-notch glass companies are evincing interest in setting up manufacturing units in Uttaranchal.

After Asahi Glass, it is now the turn of Gold Plus Glass Industry to set up a unit at Haridwar district’s Roorkee area with an investment of Rs 400 crore.

The company has identified land in Thithola village of the Roorkee area for this. Gold Plus Glass Industry Managing Director Subhash Tyagi recently met Uttaranchal Chief Minister N D Tiwari and discussed the various issues concerning the setting up of the unit.

Tyagi told Tiwari that the new unit would provide employment to 250 people and start production before March 31 next year. On his part, Tiwari asserted that his government was providing all facilities and a good atmosphere to the industries setting up units in the state. Already, nearly 2,000 new units were being set up with a total investment of Rs 20,000 crore, he said.

Asahi Glass is also setting up a new production unit in Roorkee with an investment of Rs 1,300 crore. La Opala RG Ltd and Borosil have also shown interest in setting up units in the state to avail of the tax holiday scheme of the Centre.

La Opala, India’s leading glass tableware manufacturer, is setting up a modern production unit in Uttaranchal by next year at a cost of Rs 35 crore.

The company is increasing its annual business target to Rs 100 crore by March 2009 and is hoping to introduce new tableware glass products from the plant it is planning to set up in Uttaranchal.

“Quite a few new glass companies are coming to Uttaranchal,” said Alok Kumar, managing director of the government-run State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttaranchal Limited (SIDCUL), the nodal agency for setting up units in the state.

SIDCUL’s industrial estates in Haridwar and Pant Nagar have already attracted investments from top Indian companies and multinationals.

News Source: http://www.business-standard.com

20 Jun 2006

The natural rate of groundwater recharge is reckoned to be 31 per cent of the total annual rainfall. “The recharge status of Almora town area is only 2 per cent- Bidisha Kumar

Almora in Uttaranchal is facing an acute water crisis, which has been exacerbated by rapid, unplanned urban growth and the mismanagement of vital natural resources that has led to the drying up of natural sources of water. This summer, the Kosi river, one of the major sources of drinking water, may dry up, causing a crisis.

What’s worse is that while Almora and neighbouring villages are reeling, local hotels and resorts offer spring water in abundance to patrons by buying the land on which springs are located. This makes the crisis worse for local people.

Founded in 1563, Almora traditionally depended upon its naulas and dharas (seepages and natural springs). The area has shallow aquifers that feed its springs.

But over the last 150 years the number of springs has declined from 360 to 60.

Those that remain are rapidly becoming seasonal with low flows.

The present crisis is mainly the result of irresponsible growth and unplanned development. Rapid population growth, unregulated urbanisation and the intensification of agriculture are mainly responsible for the poor utilisation of water resources. Moreover, with little forest cover, a result of massive deforestation, there is high surface run-off and poor rainwater recharge. This has adversely affected the feeding of mountain springs. The natural rate of groundwater recharge is reckoned to be 31 per cent of the total annual rainfall. “The recharge status of Almora town area is only 2 per cent, however,” says JS Rawat, the principal investigator of the Natural Resources Data Management System (NRDMS) centre of Kumaon University.

What makes matters worse is that over time the amount of rainfall the region receives has dwindled. Annual rainfall in Almora district has fallen from 1,059 mm more than 50 years ago to 745.2 mm in 2004. This is a little above the cut-off line for drought. The usual seven-day spell of continuous rainfall, called satjhar, during the monsoon does not happen and dry spells have become increasingly common.

The reduction in rain and the lack of rainwater recharge of natural springs has also adversely affected the flow of river Kosi, which is virtually a trickle during summer.

Summer flows in Kosi (May-June) constitute less than 4 per cent of annual flows. A stretch of 7.2 km of Kosi has completely dried up and nearly 13 perennial streams of the river system have become seasonal. The lowest summer flow of this spring-fed river reached an all-time low of 85 litres per second in June 2003, compared to 790 litres per second exactly 12 years ago. This year, the situation is more serious since the flow is expected to fall to 80 litres per second by June 2006.

The Kosi could dry up within the next 12 years.

Faced with a desperate situation, the government water department decided to extract groundwater by installing hand pumps along the town’s main road in 2005. Most of the pumps were hastily installed and “by the end of the year, two or more of the 20 to 24 hand pumps in the town had gone completely dry”, claims Rawat. “All the remaining hand pumps will run dry within the next five to seven years,” he adds. Uttaranchal Jal Sansthan, the state’s water authority, possesses no monitoring system to study the quantity extracted by the hand pumps. “Since most of the hand pumps are constructed along the road, villages located above and below the area do not get any water supply,” says Lalit Pande, director of Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi, an Almora based NGO.

Matters have come to such a pass largely after the people stopped taking care of the naulas and dharas. The sharing of water rationally by the community and its involvement in making sure that water sources were in good repair and spring water used with caution ended when centralized piped water supply was introduced and local people slowly became dependent on piped water. Little or no attention was paid to storing rainwater.

The first piped water scheme from springs was introduced in 1886 when traditional sources first began to dry up. The Baltoudi drinking water scheme, which packed up in 40 years, was soon followed by the Shail drinking water scheme, which suffered a similar fate.

The town presently gets most of its supply of drinking water from the Shahyi Devi gravitational water supply system and water from the Kosi. The British built the former in 1932 at a cost of Rs 175,000. The scheme harnessed water from seven springs originating in forests located 35 km from Almora. The forest springwater is collected in two-metre deep tanks and then flows down to a larger storage tank at Kankar Kothi for distribution.

The Kosi river water supply scheme was started in 1948 at a cost of Rs 10 lakh. It involved pumping water to a pumping station situated 370 m above the river, which, in 2005-06, cost Rs 193.4 lakh, amounting to 70 per cent of the total annual cost of operation and maintenance. Around 8 km of pipelines then supplied treated water to 10 storage reservoirs. From there water flowed through 35 km of a piped network to consumers.

News Source: http://www.centralchronicle.com

Our Regional Bureau / New Delhi/ Dehra Dun, 08 June 2006

Transmission network to be set

The power scenario will improve further in Uttaranchal by the end of this year with the commissioning of three major hydro-electric plants.

These projects include the 1,000 Mw Tehri, the second phase of the 304 Mw Maneri Bhali, and the 400 Mw Vishnuprayag.

“By the end of this year, we will add 1,704 Mw through these projects,” said Principal Secretary (Power) N Ravishanker.”

All the four units (76X4) of the Maneri Bhali project, being built by the state agencies, will start by December.

Vishnuprayag, which is being built by the Jaypee Group, will also be commissioned by October this year though its first unit may start functioning by the end of June.

With the power scenario perking up, the state for power evacuation at Rs 30 crore and invite private players in this regard.

For this purpose, the government has sought loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Through this network, the government is hopeful of linking all the transmission lines coming from various hydel projects in the state with the northern grid. “Our main purpose is to link various hydel projects in the state with the northern grid,” Ravishanker said.

Sub transmission networks in both Garhwal and Kumaon regions would also be set up on similar lines.

The power generation capacity in Uttaranchal, which is being billed as energy state is expected to rise with the government stating that it would generate another 1,700 Mw of power in the 11th Plan while it has set a target of producing 4,000 Mw in the 12th Plan. Uttaranchal is producing 1,400 Mw .

The National Thermal Power Corporation, National Hydroelectric Power Corporation, Tehri Hydro Power Corporation, and Uttaranchal Jal Vidyut Nigam are the big government enterprises which are constructing big hydel projects in the state. The controversial Tehri hydel project alone will produce 2,400 Mw .

News Source: http://www.business-standard.com

New Delhi, 05 Jun 2006

Uttaranchal is ready to pole vault ahead of other Indian states by embarking on an ambitious statewide e-governance project, with a little help from Singapore.

In a surprise decision, the Himalayan state has awarded a Singapore-based IT solutions firm Rs 8-crore-contract to build a Citizen data Vault to store statistical and biometric data of its eight million citizens. Sources said it overlooked Indian IT firms due to the proven track record of the firm CrimsonLogic which has successfully executed several e-gov projects in Singapore.

CrimsonLogic will design, develop and implement the Vault and develop a statewide public key infrastructure (PKI) for the secure delivery of e-governance services to Uttaranchal’s citizens and its businesses.

The Vault will serve as Uttaranchal’s central data hub and the single source of citizen data for all its 109 government departments. It will help standardize the way citizen information is recorded and presented, as well as give the state government better management and control over this centralised data.

This is the largest IT project undertaken by Uttaranchal government with private help and will be implemented by the end of the year on a fast track basis.

In the first phase, a state-wide survey of Uttaranchal’s citizens would be undertaken through a multi-purpose household survey, followed by the establishment of the Citizen Data Vault in the next and the distribution of PKI-enabled smart cards to the citizens in the third phase. These smart cards would be used to access e-governance services via Internet or public kiosks.

According to company executives, a household survey has already commenced in the two municipal corporations of Rishikesh and Almora. It involves recording of such statistical information as address and number of dependents living in a single household as well as biometric data such as an individual’s photograph and fingerprints which are recorded digitally before the information is uploaded on the Citizen Data Vault.

When fully implemented by next year, the Vault is expected to reduce service processing and delivery time from months to a matter of days. The electronic processes are expected to significantly cut down paperwork and bureaucratic procedures, catapulting Uttaranchal among frontline states that are busy e-enabling themselves.

In the pilot phase, a group of citizen will be issued PKI-enabled smart cards for accessing select government services. Over a period, all state applications (government-to-citizen and government-to-business) for permits and government schemes and grants, tax payment, and even job registration could be made online using these cards.

“By improving work efficiency and minimizing data discrepancies, this strategic initiative will result in more transparent and effective decision-making processes in government departments. CrimsonLogic is honoured to be a partner of the Uttaranchal government in its journey to transform public services and empower its citizens,” said CrimsonLogic CEO Leong Peng Kiong.

“The Vault will provide one of the key prerequisites of citizen-centric e-governance services – the sharing of information across agencies. This will in turn enable the deep integration of government processes so that e-services can be designed around the lives and needs of citizens. It is envisioned that citizens will enjoy greatly reduced processing times, significantly less paperwork and bureaucracy, and much improved standards of service,” added the company’s director consulting Tan Sian Lip.

CrimsonLogic had earlier in January this year secured a 10-year contract from the Singapore government to develop and operate a new national IT platform for trade and logistics for the city state. Known as TradeXchange, the system is expected to go live in October 2007, and will support an estimated 90,000 registered traders in Singapore

News Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com

Dehdradun, 03 Jun 2006

Three day event was held from 1st June 06 to 3rd June 06 at Dehradun. The first ever IT event of its kind in Uttaranchal saw partnership from major IT companies including Intel, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, TCS, Nortel, APC and BSNL along with others. The inaugural session was presided by Shri Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttaranchal. The keynote address was made by Shri Jairam Ramesh, Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce, Govt of India. This session was also addressed over video conferencing by Shri Sam Pitroda, Chairman Knowledge Commission, Govt of India and Shri Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM.

News Source: www.sidcul.com