Government offices across mountainous Himachal Pradesh are set to be linked through IT under an e-governance project that the administration hopes will bring in transparency and speed up decision making.

Officials said a report for the Rs.720 million project had been sent for approval to the Centre after which work would start on an information technology (IT) project to connect government offices across the hill state to the capital here.

"The Himachal State Wide Area Network (HIMSWAN) will connect the state secretariat in Shimla to all state government departments at the district, sub-division and sub-district levels," a government spokesman said here Sunday.

"This will help immediate availability of data for queries and reports and help bring transparency and speed in decision making in the government sector," he said.

In the already completed first phase of the HIMSWAN project, launched earlier this year, a local area network has been established in the state secretariat with a provision of 600 nodes that will help provide at least one computer per three officials.

"In only a few months after the e-governance plan was implemented in the secretariat, it has begun to show results by saving time energy and bringing transparency in," said the official.

Besides Chief Minister Vir Bhadra Singh, ministers and top government officials of the state government also sit in the secretariat.

The new project will enable accurate and updated information, which otherwise can take months and often become outdated, to be retrieved instantly at the click of a button.

The state government has already given industry status to IT. Besides, entrepreneurs are being given incentives for setting up IT-related industry in the state.

--Indo-Asian News Service