For over four decades, the National Informatics Center (NIC) has been the backbone of India's digital administration, powering critical services like email for government domains (gov.in and nic.in) while supporting crores of government employees across ministries.
In 2023, as part of its drive to shift collaboration services to a dedicated, secure cloud environment, NIC initiated a competitive tender through the Digital India Corporation (DIC) under MeitY—the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Zoho Corporation was selected to manage and migrate official email and office suite services following an exhaustive evaluation process.
What's available for Government of India offices
A custom, rebranded version of Zoho Workplace—our email and collaboration suite—will be available for government departments as well as Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs). This enables them to run email, files, documents, and communications on a secure, indigenous platform.
Government of India employees will have access to:
- Zoho Mail for secure email hosting
- Zoho WorkDrive for robust file management
- Zoho Meeting for seamless web conferencing
- Zoho Cliq for efficient team communication
- Mobile Device Management for device security
- Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Show for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
- Zoho OneAuth for secure authentication
- Zoho Contacts for contact management
Hosted in secure Tier 4 data centers under NIC's strategic control, the stack deploys a defense-in-depth strategy across all layers, featuring:
- DDoS mitigation to thwart volumetric attacks
- Network Intrusion Prevention Systems (NIPS) for real-time threat blocking
- Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) for proactive endpoint monitoring
- Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) to verify every access request
- Privileged Access Management (PAM) for controlled admin privileges
- Web Application Firewalls (WAF) to shield against web exploits
- Dedicated 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC) for continuous vigilance
- Live log sharing mechanism to gain real-time visibility
Complementing this, Zoho adheres to periodic audits of the entire infrastructure, applications, and processes by CERT-IN-empaneled firms designated by NIC. As of today, Zoho has undergone multiple audits by STQC and CDAC—comprehensively covering:
- Functional Testing
- Web Application Security Testing
- Vulnerability Assessment of Network Infrastructure
- Penetration Testing
- Infrastructure Audit
- Mobile and Desktop Application Security Testing
Looking ahead
The migration, underway since the 2023 tender award, has successfully transitioned over 11 lakh government accounts. One department at a time, NIC and Zoho aim to fully migrate all Government of India ministries and departments to this secure cloud.
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Nearly three decades since Zoho's founding in a small Chennai office, this embrace by the government validates a core philosophy: build patiently, prioritize privacy, and let utility drive growth.
Our sincere gratitude to the National Informatics Center and the Government of India for their trust 🙏
This initiative by NIC truly highlights how cloud technology can accelerate digital transformation in government sectors. By adopting Zoho Workplace, interdepartmental collaboration becomes more efficient, secure, and future-ready. It’s inspiring to see how India’s digital infrastructure continues to evolve!
Congrats! Humiungous achievement!! it is not a not a small job that yoy have reached this level. You have not mentioned about about securure audio and video calls, guess they are offered as well, as meetings are so commonplace in government. If so, are you archiving the recording these for preparing MoM/Meeting summary as is being so comminly resorted to in many places - though implemented by users carefully often. Glad you have implemented "Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) to verify every access request". What about compliance to accessibility for PwD users. As you may know, IS 17802 is manadatory and I hope you will implement is as well. You can get help from C-DAC, NIC and others. They have a free resting tool as well, including for developers. Congrats, again, you have done the nation proud. Have you provided for user feedback?
Very Nice article with proper information. Superb.