Sankhya Vahini to be operational next year

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, MAY 28. The National High Speed Inter-University Data Network (IUNet), popularly known as the `Sankhya Vahini', will become operational next year. Work on the project will start in the next two to three months.

This was stated by the Union Minister for Telecommunications, Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, at a press conference here today.

Dismissing apprehensions about the data communication network, he said, he had gone through ``each and every part of the project'' and had found nothing objectionable. ``I clarified everything in Parliament itself,'' he said.

However, he admitted that there was some initial ``confusion'' about whether IUNet was a 100 per cent subsidiary of the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). This was clarified later. He said there was no need to call a global tender as the project germinated from an idea.

The Union Minister was critical of those who said the country's security interests would be compromised on account of the `Sankhya Vahini'. ``There are eminent people behind the project. Dr. V.S. Arunachalam himself was a scientific advisor to the Defence Minister,'' he remarked.

``There are four to five lakh Indian software engineers working in the United States. Do you mean to say the security interests of U.S. gets compromised,'' he asked. Mr. Paswan was emphatic that the country needed a high band-width which offers Internet that works 1,000 time faster than the present one to connect universities and research institutions.

``Which country will give us the technology and who will bear the expenditure? We have no other option but to go ahead. For quite sometime we have only been discussing the project, though the Union Cabinet cleared it in January itself,'' he said.

The Minister pointed out that the CMU had undertaken such a network project for Israel too. ``Is there any other country which is more conscious of its security interests,'' he wondered.

Phones for DoT staff

Mr. Paswan said all class four and class three employees of the Department of Telecommunications would be provided free telephone connections. There would be no registration and rental fees or installation charges. The instrument would also be given free of cost. They would be entitled to 150 free calls too. The scheme was expected to benefit an estimated 3.5 lakh employees.

He also announced a 70-day bonus for the staff. Commenting on the Bihar scenario, the Minister said it was anarchy at its ``worst''.

``People voted against the `Jungle Raj' of Laloo Yadav, but thanks to the Congress party, the RJD is back in power.'' He alleged that in the last 10 years of Laloo's rule, as many as 60,000 lives were lost in mass killings, a majority of whom were scheduled castes. He wondered why the Congress president, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, was silent on the massacres of Dalits.

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