Minister of Science and Technology Shiva Lal Thapa and Korean ambassador to Nepal Choe Yong-jin visited the construction site of “Disaster Recovery Center (DRC)” in Hetauda.

Dr. HyungKyoo Kim, Country Director of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Pranita Upadhyaya, Executive Director of National Information Technology Center (NITC) and other delegates were also present during the visit.

According to a press release issued by KOICA, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the project “Establishment of Disaster Recovery Center” was signed on May 14, 2013 with Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Nepal with the total budget of US$ 4.6 million. This project includes the construction of the DRC building, provision of the HR support (Experts and Training) and IT equipment necessary to operate the Center. Especially, for the HR capacity building, Korean experts will provide required technical guidance besides Nepali officials will have series of trainings to acquire knowledge and experience required for the successful implementation and management of the DRC.

Promoting E-Governance is one of the KOICA’s major activities, which it has supported many other developing countries to make transition to E-Government structure. In Nepal, KOICA completed establishment of NITC(also known as GIDC, Government Integrated Data Center) in 2008 within Singha Durbar. The objective of having Government Central Data Center is to store the public data servers from different public entities in one safe, secure place so as not to lose and damage nor protect important public information from any damages or natural disasters. Currently NITC is storing the main servers of Government Groupware, National Portal, Electronic Driving License and Vehicle Registration, Passport system, National ID and many others.

Upon the completion of the DRC building construction by the end of this year, most of these data servers will be co-located in DRC in Hetauda as back-up storage. DRC will function as Data back-up center, so in any case of accident in the main server (in Kathmandu), DRC will be able to provide up-to-most-recently stored information of each application.

Recalling the devastating earthquake in 2015, while almost all government organizations were affected from the incident, we have witnessed how important to have secure and safe environment against natural disaster, power shortage or any other external attack to save the national public data in the center of government compound. In this context, this DRC project is expected to contribute harvesting synergy effect in the public information management of the Government of Nepal with NITC.

Currently, despite of the delay of the construction due to the blockage and shortages in the past however, the today’s visit will encourage to move ahead for the smooth and safe completion of the project without any hindrances.