Mira-Bhayandar: MBMC to establish modern data centre at headquarters for secure data storage and access

The Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has announced plans to establish its own modern data centre at its headquarters in Bhayandar (west). A modern data centre provides a secure physical and storage infrastructure for an organization's data systems.

At present, the civic administration spends over Rs.80 lakh every year to store their data with a Nashik-based data warehouse, and also faces difficulties accessing information from the outsourced facility. The MBMC has already initiated several services on the e-governance platform, such as online payment facilities for various taxes, digital generation of birth/death certificates, an e-tendering system, and an application for water connections.

All of this information needs to be stored and protected in a separate data centre, according to municipal commissioner Dilip Dhole, in view of MBMC's current and future requirements, taking advantage of emerging technologies like cloud computing and big data analytics. The estimated cost for establishing the data centre and supporting data recovery mechanisms in the fire and emergency wing services building in Bhayandar is pegged at Rs. 7 crore. A government-empanelled consultant has been tasked with preparing a detailed project report (DPR) for the purpose.

While Rs. 3 crore has been allocated for the data centre project in the current fiscal year, the MBMC hopes to secure the remaining funds from the state government. Once the tender is finalized, it is expected to take nearly three years to set up the facility. The data centre will serve various purposes, including being the central repository of the state, an online delivery platform for services, a citizen information portal, a state intranet portal, remote management and service integration, and disaster recovery.