Digital Infrastructure for citizen e-services

Digital Infrastructure refers to the foundational services that are necessary to develop the information technology capabilities. It is necessary for the economic growth and improving the quality of life of the people.

National Informatics Centre (NIC), an attached office of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) works closely with Government in provisioning state-of-the-art infrastructure. Digital Infrastructure for Government was further strengthened through a number of initiatives taken under the National e-Governance Plan. Following were the initiatives taken:

• NICNET
• It is the Pan India communication network for exclusive use of Government has continuously evolved since 1980s in terms of its geographical expansion, state of the art technology, reliability as Well as security architecture.
• Today it connects Government offices across the length and breadth of India using a combination of technologies viz. fiber optic, copper cable, VSAT, Radio Frequency based on availability and suitability of technology to terrain of the land.
• Today, NICNET is at the base of all Government communications right from Government to Government, Government to citizen as well as Government to business communication.
• National Knowledge Network
• It is another important initiative which provides Multigigabit nationwide network connected through 10G backbone.
• It also extends high speed connectivity to leading Research and Academic Institutions is of the country.
• Data Centres
• Realizing the importance of Data Centres, National Informatics Centre (NIC) has established large Data Centres at Delhi, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar and Pune
• These centres are offering robust, resilient and secure set-up for e-Governance applications, web portals and websites with high availability and accessibility.
• Mini-Data Centres are also operational in all NIC State centres to cater to the e-Governance requirements at the state level.
• National Cloud (MeghRaj)
• In order to utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing, Government of India initiated a Government Cloud initiative titled MeghRaj” in 2014.
• Bharat Maps
• Bharat Maps is a multi-layered GlS platform / web service comprising of seamless country wide base maps, satellite images and hybrid maps aligned as per the global geo spatial standards.
• Video-Conferencing
• NIC has been offering Video Conferencing services since 1995 for connecting and bringing administration close to each other.
• As on today, over +1852 Video Conferencing sites have been established, thus becoming an integral component of Government functioning and processes.
• Video Conferencing is now extensively used at all levels of governance i.e. Centre to State, State to District and Sub-districts, and government to public.
• It provides state of the art, high definition, multi-party, anytime, anywhere video conferencing services. This has resulted in substantial saving of time and cost.
• Cyber Security
• To address ever increasing threat of cyber-attacks in terms of their magnitude as well as their sophistication, Computer Emergency Response Team (NIC-CERT) group has been constituted.
• It has an objective of analysing, monitoring and responding to cyber threats on critical government cyber infrastructure, like websites, emails and various services.
• NIC-CERT coordinates with other stakeholders to mitigate the cyber threats by monitoring network for security incidents and issuing advisory for vulnerabilities.
• NIC-CERT works in close guidance of CERT-In, which is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents as and when they occur.