Indian Government is tracing the lost river Saraswati

Government has launched en effort to unravel the mystery behind the ancient Saraswati river, which found its references in 'vedic' texts.

Though efforts had been made in the past by geologists and scientific community both during British period as well as in independent India, the river remained a mystery so much so that its mention in the ancient texts has invariably been termed as mythological reference.

"There are enough scientific evidences on the presence of the river Saraswati in some parts of the country through which it flowed about five to six thousand years ago...Saraswati is not a myth", said the Union water resources and river development minister Uma Bharti on Tuesday.

Responding to a calling attention motion in Lok Sabha, Bharti said her government was taking up the issue very seriously "to trace the route of the river".

She also informed the lower House that the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) of her ministry has been directed "to test the water of a well located inside the Allahabad fort" in order to trace the source and route of the river, which is now extinct.

The motion was moved in the House by BJP member Ratan Lal Kataria who wanted the government to set up 'Saraswati Research Institute' for the "revival" of the river. He reminded the House of a promise made by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, he claimed, during an election campaign in Kurkshetra vowed to bring the water stream of the river Saraswati on the ground surface.

Stating that a lot of research has been done on the river, particularly in Gujarat, Bharti said there were several rivers named Saraswati which emanated from the Himalayas, including one which mingled with the Triveni in Allahabad, another with Mandakini and the third with Alaknanda river.

She said there was also a river with the same name that passed through Haryana to Rajasthan and Gujarat.

How government plans to leverage cloud computing

The Indian government is looking to leverage cloud computing in a big way, beginning with its multi-billion dollar mission-mode projects, six of which will be kick-started within a month's time, following an evaluation of what technological changes can be brought about in these to improve efficiency and provide better citizen services.

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) secretary Ram Sewak Sharma told ET that he has identified six existing mission mode projects (MMP) which will be assessed by an internal group, based on the need for technology upgradation, scope of process simplification with emerging technologies and the possibility of leveraging newer technology platforms.

"We can redesign a lot of projects now. In a lot of these, we can provide SaaS (softwareas-a-service), deploy the software centrally, and everybody should become a client and start using it...you can converge this infrastructure so you can rewrite codes, make them more efficient, use more technologies, use more delivery mediums," said Sharma.

The government's MMPs focus on one aspect of e-governance such as pensions, banking, insurance and judiciary. These are classified as central, state or integrated projects, and each state can identify up to five MMPs for its own needs.

These projects include Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) Scheme, e-Courts, road transport, treasuries and commercial taxes. It is also assessing the national social assistance programme and another one related to prisons.

The combined total outlay of these projects, most of which were sanctioned between 2007 and 2010, is over Rs 4,842.41 crore, according to figures obtained from a 2011 DeitY report.

The group will make recommendations on the possibility of using a common software across different MMPs, migration from legacy systems to newer ones, and implementing more such projects in different areas to enable better egovernance, Sharma added.

In tune with prime minister Narendra Modi's slogan of "minimum government, maximum governance", DeitY's roadmap seeks to leverage different media and technology including cloud, broadband and mobile.

The use of existing platforms such as Aadhaar, social media, payment gateways, and new delivery mediums such as real-time applications are just some of the ways this can be achieved, Sharma said.


-TOI