The incidents of vandalism, arson and looting during the Gen-G movement have shown how important digital infrastructure and backup are. While the information technology systems of some public bodies that do not have fast backups are being shut down indefinitely, many documents are being 'restored' in bodies like the Supreme Court and Nepal Investment Board that have arranged for backups.

Along with the Supreme Court, Department of Transportation, Ministry of Health, several police offices and important physical and digital structures and records of the private sector were damaged. But most of the country's information technology infrastructure and backup systems are safe. Telecommunications, internet, data and cloud, digital payments, cyber security and other infrastructures remained in continuous operation during the crisis . If the digital infrastructure was deeply damaged, Nepal could have gone into a state of horror and emptiness.

According to Manish Bhattarai, head of the Integrated Data Management Center (National Information Technology Centre), there is no problem in the infrastructure of the primary data center in Kathmandu and the disaster recovery office in Hetaunda. Even as the massive fire was burning in the neighboring building in Singha Darbar, data center staff were inside monitoring dozens of servers around the clock.

"If the data center had not been saved, the damage would have been greater than the physical damage that has been done to the public bodies, the country would have reached zero," says Bhattarai, "because all the data would have disappeared". The documents, records and documents of many government offices have all been burnt, if there was no digital backup of them, the loss would have been unimaginable.

Integrated Data Management Center currently has more than 2500 websites of 753 local levels and associations in operation. Data from Nepal Rastra Bank, Ministry of Home Affairs, Nepal Police, Company Registrar's office are kept here. The center has been doing things like hosting government servers, providing website domains for government offices, providing email services, and managing government networks.

Even when the fire was burning in Singha Darbar, the employees of the data center were monitoring dozens of servers round the clock, if the data center was not saved, the country would have reached zero . Manish Bhattarai, Head, Integrated Data Management Center The risk of losing digital data related to vehicles and driver's licenses across the country has increased after the transport management department's server kept in the office premises at Meen Bhawan was completely destroyed. Also, the old document storage room was completely destroyed, making retrieval of records almost impossible . With this destruction of the department, the transport administrative service of Nepal has come to a standstill, while license distribution and number plate system have stopped, thousands of citizens have been directly affected.

When the investment board in the Baneshwar Parliament complex was destroyed, the data stored in the computers and devices there were destroyed . "Our office management system is hosted by an integrated data center and the files there are safe," said Pradyumna Prasad Upadhyay, the spokesperson of the Board of Investment, "the ones on the local server and hard disk are burned." It remains to be seen what happened to it.

Center Computer Officer Santosh Sharma informed that the data of the Supreme Court hosted by the integrated data center is also being prepared to be recovered. "We don't know how much backup they had kept, but as much as it was kept, it will be recovered," he said.

While the movement was raging, many youths repeatedly asked not to do so and to protect the data hub when there were fierce expressions of razing the Singh Darbar. As soon as the protestors entered Singh Darbar, the Nepali Army brought their vehicle and the road to enter the data center was also relieved, Sharma said.

"Our engineers and office assistants who stayed inside worked bravely," says Bhattarai, head of the center, "They stayed there for two/three days during the agitation period". He worked to monitor the condition of the servers to see if there is a digital threat on the occasion of the movement.' According to him, the system of Citizen App was hosted in the center so its service continued to operate and even the National Identity Card office was not damaged. If the center's infrastructure or backup systems were damaged, all government services would have come to a halt .

Citizens would have to face countless problems in their daily life if important government data such as Citizen App, National Identity Card (NID) were destroyed or inaccessible. Lokraj Sharma, director of information technology of the registration department, informed that some national identity cards were burned.

The head of the center, Bhattarai, told that the data in the information technology system has helped in re-operating the service for other agencies whose documents were destroyed by burning. "During such a crisis, the importance of the data center has become more evident," he said, "without it, the government's performance could have been seriously disrupted, and the administrative system of the country could have collapsed." Sudhir Parajuli, president of the Umbrella Organization of Internet Service Providers (ISPAN), among its member organizations, informed that the main data center of CGNET at City Park was completely burnt. In addition, he said that although the services of Vianet's servers in the Cloud Himalaya data center were disrupted, the equipment was not damaged. "In the area around the Hilton Hotel, the FTTH wires were cut due to the fire and the glass breakage has not been stopped, so it has not been repaired yet," he said, "because of this, the internet service in that area is blocked." It would have a major impact on mass media, financial transactions, online education and business. An indefinite internet outage could stop the flow of information and bring chaos to people's lives . "Our employees risked their efforts to provide services," says Parajuli, who is also the president of Suvisu Cablenet, "Since the Internet is an essential service, we tried to prevent it from being interrupted." We acted cautiously after the increase in shootings and arson incidents.'

Even when their own buildings were on fire during the protest, the telecommunication service provider provided free voice and data services. According to an official of Ncell, vandalism, arson and looting took place in the regional offices and Ncell centers in Dhangadhi, Mahendranagar and Pokhara. The data center and tower were not damaged, so the communication service was not interrupted .

If the data centers or towers of Ncell and Nepal Telecom were damaged, it would have caused a major disruption in the country's mobile communication services. Many consumers were uncommunicative. According to that Ncell official, if the digital infrastructure and practices were not strong, instead of the 100 percent work being done now, only 30-40 percent work could have been done .

It has been reported that there is no major damage to the wireless and wired service equipment of the government-owned Nepal Telecom and the country's major services are operating without interruption. The offices of Biratnagar, Pokhara, Birganj and Itahari were attacked. But Nepal Telecom spokesperson Ravindra Manandhar informed that the main equipment is safe. "FTTH has been installed in Sindharbar," he said.

If Nepal Telecom's main infrastructure or servers were damaged, the country's basic communication system would have been disrupted. Without phone services, mobile networks and government communications, citizens would be out of touch with each other . During a disaster or a crisis, the necessary information could not be exchanged. It would have seriously hindered security and relief work.

Sajan Sharma, President of Fintech Alliance Nepal informed that there is no damage to the digital payment system and the service is running continuously. According to him, the 'critical systems' of financial technology companies are continuously operating. "Even though services were interrupted for some time due to the disruption of data services in wallet companies, customers did not have to feel the impact due to the curfew," Sharma said. This could cause a big crisis in the economy and common people would have to face problems in financial transactions. Sharma said that this incident made the importance of the concept of disaster recovery more clear.