Media reports indicate that over the past year, all 1.2 million email addresses belonging to Central government employees, including those from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), have been migrated from a system managed by the National Informatics Centre to a platform developed by Zoho. A senior official stated that Zoho’s suite has also been configured to restrict government employees from utilizing open-source applications for creating word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
On October 3, the Union Ministry of Education released a directive encouraging officials to utilize the Zoho suite “in alignment with the Government of India’s broader vision of transforming the nation from a service economy into a product nation, and in pursuit of building a self-reliant ecosystem in technology, hardware, and software solutions”.
Although the suite was previously available, it was not widely used by government employees. “It was found that many government employees were using open source tools, which could compromise security of files, and it was decided to make them aware and display its features prominently on the internal mail platform,” said the official in talks with The Hindu.
It was mentioned that the Zoho Office Suite is now integrated into the NIC mail system, and by adopting Zoho's native office productivity tools, we are making a significant move in the Swadeshi initiative. This empowers India to lead with locally developed innovation, enhances digital independence, and ensures data security for a self-sufficient future.
Another official noted that while the domain names of the emails remain as nic.in or gov.in, the data storage and processing host has shifted from NIC to Zoho. The private company was granted the contract in 2023 for a duration of seven years, the official added.
The NIC, established in 1976 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), is the technology partner of the Central government and provides technology-driven solutions to both Central and State governments. Zoho is headquartered in Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu.
Founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu, Tony Thomas, and Shailesh Kumar Davey, Zoho Corporation is an Indian multinational technology firm headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, with operations in nearly 80 countries.