Kolkata, Nov 30 (IANS): The West Bengal government has decided to upgrade and expand the infrastructure of its data centre with an estimated investment of Rs 56.64 crore, a statement said on Wednesday.

The new infrastructure of the data centre is expected to be in place and ready for operation by May 2017.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led-state government said the current infrastructure of the data centre needed to be upgraded and augmented in view of growing needs of the government.

"In order to mitigate various risks and to ensure a highly reliable infrastructure, the department of information technology and electronics has initiated the process of expanding and upgrading the West Bengal State Data Centre with latest and best in class technologies," the official statement said.

All the applications hosted at state data centre would be migrated in the proposed new infrastructure by December, 2017.

Departments will take initiatives to migrate their applications in the new data centre.

"The total cost of the project is Rs 56.64 crore over the next five years, out of which about 55 per cent will be required over the next two years," the statement added.

There are 37 departmental applications which are hosted in the state data centre. Two hosting of two applications is in progress and there are 8 applications in the pipeline.