Maharashtra is one of the largest states in India with 30 districts, and the state capital at Mumbai. The state has had two major earthquakes in recent history which caused great loss of life and property in small towns and villages. Being on the sea coast, disasters due to tidal movements and typhoons are also frequent.

After the tragic earthquake at Latur, Maharashtra became the first state in India to plan, design, and implement a dedicated communication network for disaster management. As part of the Maharashtra Emergency Earthquake Rehabilitation Programme (MEERP), the Maharashtra Disaster Recovery VSAT network was installed using satellite based communications technology due to the inherent advantage of satellites which are not affected by ground-related disasters.

Today, the MEERP network consists of a central Hub station in Mumbai, with a backup geographic redundant hub at Pune, and 37 remote stations distributed across the state. Each of the state's 30 districts has a VSAT terminal at its district headquarters. Six remotes are located at divisional Commissioner Offices in Nasik, Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Amravati. Transponder space on Intelsat has been leased by VSNL to the state.

The MEERP Network financed by World Bank with the design details worked out by the customer and its consultant (MELTRON) was awarded to Global Wireless Technology Limited, with ViaSat Inc., USA as the lead supply partner.

The key requirement, met by the ViaSat Skylinx® product, was the geographic redundancy of the network, whereby the entire network would seamlessly work even in case of any emergency shutdown of the main hub at Mantralaya in Mumbai. In such a case, the Pune hub would automatically take over the control of the overall network. Besides this basic feature, the network was going to be used for the following:

• Data applications, like maintaining these on-line records at the Mumbai Secretariat of each district-level transaction.
  • Revenue and tax collections
  • Computerized land records
  • Agricultural inputs
  • Commodity price movements
  • Help in drought-prone areas
  • Rural development programs
  • Other general administration

These data applications would generally be using file transfers, email and certain basic record update software.

• Mesh Voice and fax capabilities between the various district collectorate offices and with the Central Secretariat.

The network based on Skylinx DAMA equipment works on the Intelsat 804 satellite and is also amongst the first networks in India to operate on Ku-band. The network has capability to operate in full mesh architecture and in a Demand Assigned mode, which enables the frequency and power resources of the satellite to be used only when a caller initiates a voice or data call.

The Primary Hub at Mumbai houses the Skylinx SCPC DAMA equipment for voice and data traffic to the central site, as well as the NMS for monitoring and controlling the network. This NMS Server is fully aware of all the traffic in the network at any give point in time.

The Geo Redundant Hub at Pune is exactly same in configuration to the Mumbai hub. The servers at Pune get replicated with all the changes that occur at the master server at the NMS in Mumbai.

This fully standby hub at Pune provides full geographic redundancy for the main hub in Mumbai. If at all the Mumbai hub loses control of the network, all the functionality of the NMS would be switched over automatically to the hub at Pune. This switchover is seamless, without any break in the existing communication going on between the various locations. All new call requests automatically get handled by the Pune NMS. This ensures that there is absolutely no breakdown in communication in the network even in case of a disastrous situation at Mumbai.

The network is configured to accommodate 8 kbps voice carriers, data carriers at 64 kbps, and some video carriers at 384 kbps. All the applications work in the Demand Assigned mode, with the help of some unique features of the Skylinx system which allows for even the data and video calls being dialed on-demand.

The MEERP network with the help of National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been recently upgraded by ViaSat to the latest standards and features, thereby allowing for the latest functionality:

• Remote maintenance by NIC from their Skylinx NMS in Delhi, providing further fall back for geo-redundancy
• High speed internet data connectivity up to 2 Mbps via the Mantralaya gateway in Mumbai, using the Skylinx high speed modem enhancement
• Option of multi-party videoconferencing

The MEERP network today enables voice, data, fax, file transfers and e-mail connection for any location to anywhere in the state. Videoconferencing between district collectors, divisional commissioners and secretariat headquarters is also available for general state administration.

The Maharashtra Disaster Recovery communications network is being used as part of an integrated, comprehensive disaster management program to forewarn the government of earthquakes, typhoons, floods and other such natural calamities. It also contributes to the coordination among hospitals, voluntary organizations, police, fire brigades and the government during post disaster relief and rehabilitation measures all over the state.

The MEERP Project is a very well conceived, planned and executed project; the first of its kind in India. The Disaster Management Plan for the state of Maharashtra thus emerges as one of the most comprehensive programs on the area of disaster management, managing disaster after-effects which impinge so greatly on human life and society.

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