Procurement News Notice |
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| PNN | 6212 |
| Work Detail | IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recently tweeted about roping in the likes of Microsoft and IBM for its cloud services. The tweet has led to all sort of speculation about the cloud services offered by the government. IT Ministry is reportedly planning to rope in private companies like Microsoft and IBM for providing cloud computing services to government departments. But the cyber security experts are apprehensive about the move and have raised questions about security of the services. Earlier, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had tweeted a news report suggesting that private companies such as Microsoft, IBM and others may be roped in by the IT ministry to provide cloud services to government departments. The tweet attracted criticism by social media users who questioned the reported proposal on security grounds. Though there was no official announcement of the reported proposal, the IT ministry did not make any official comment over the same. “I think by using cloud services of foreign companies like Microsoft and IBM, IT Ministry has decided to throw all Data and National Security concerns into a dustbin. What has happened to the National Cloud Project of government? We appeal the Prime Minister to intervene and stop this else this will send a wrong message,” Indian Infosec Consortium (IIC) CEO Jiten Jain said. IIC is India’s cyber security group which has around 4,000 members. “If the world’s software superpower (India) does not have the capacity to even build its own Indigenous cloud infrastructure then where is ‘Make in India’,” Jain added. The previous UPA government had launched the National Cloud project which would be managed by its own agency NIC. “The purpose of the project MehgRaj was to basically to keep data of government managed projects within its control for security reasons and also to help government departments in reducing their time, capital and operational expenditure in implementing e-governance services,” an official involved in the project MehgRaj said. Government has earmarked over Rs 1,000 crore for Meghraj under which the Department of Electronics and IT will have to set up data centers and develop IT applications for all central and state government departments to roll out e-governance services. |
| Country | India , Southern Asia |
| Industry | Information Technology |
| Entry Date | 15 Oct 2016 |
| Source | http://www.bgr.in/news/it-ministry-receives-flak-for-plans-to-rope-in-microsoft-ibm-to-provide-cloud-services/ |
