What is the future of Cloud Computing in India

This article is all about the future of Cloud Computing in India and what are the initiatives takes by the India Government like MeghRaj, DigiLocker, Data Centres in India.

Cloud Computing and Data Centres

The size of the digital population in India and the growth trajectory of the digital economy necessitates a strong growth of Data Centres.

A Data Centre is a dedicated secure space within a centralized location where computing and networking equipment is concentrated for the purpose of collecting, storing, processing, distributing or allowing access to large amounts of data.

Cloud Service providers host their IT infrastructure in Data Centres to provide the Cloud Computing services to the end users.

In the Union Budget 2022-23, the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs proposed that the Data Centres (along with Energy Storage Systems) would be included in the harmonized list of infrastructure.

Need for Data Centre

Need for Data Centre infrastructure in India is necessitated by the data localization provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and for protection of the digital sovereignty of the country in an increasingly connected world.

As per various estimates, India has around 499 MW installed power capacity for Data Centres (till December 2022).

The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology also proposed a draft Data Centre Policy in 2020 with the vision of:

Making India a Global Data Centre hub,
Promoting investment in the sector,
Propelling digital economy growth,
Enabling the provisioning of trusted hosting infrastructure, and
Facilitating state of the art service delivery to citizens.

Growth of Data Centre in India

As per the draft Data Centre Policy 2020, for the long-term growth of the Data Centre sector in the country, it is critical to create a congenial, competitive and sustainable operating environment for the businesses. Some of the key policy thrust areas in this direction include:

Availability of uninterrupted, clean and cost-effective electricity for Data Centres remains as one of the most important considerations for the Data Centre sector.
MeitY to work with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to facilitate robust and cost-effective connectivity backhaul.
Data Centres to be declared as an Essential Service under “The Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1968 (ESMA)”.
Recognize Data Centres as a separate category under the National Building Code.
Setting-up of Data Centre Economic Zones.
Promote indigenous technology development, research and capacity building.

GI Cloud Initiative – MeghRaj

In order to utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing, Government of India has embarked upon an ambitious initiative – “GI Cloud” which has been named as ‘MeghRaj’ in February 2014.

This initiative is to implement various components including governance mechanisms to ensure proliferation of Cloud in the government.

The focus of this initiative is to accelerate delivery of e-services in the country while optimizing ICT spending of the Government.

The architectural vision of GI Cloud encompasses a set of discrete cloud computing environments spread across multiple locations, built on existing or new (augmented) infrastructure, following a set of common protocols, guidelines and standards issued by the Government of India.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is providing National Cloud services under the initiative MeghRaj. The services offered are Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Services (SaaS), Container as a Services (NCCaaS), Artificial Intelligence as a Service, Application Performance Management (APM) Service, Resource Monitoring as a Service, etc.

Advantages of MeghRaj

Optimum utilization of existing infrastructure.
Any software made available by any government department in India can be made available to other departments as well without additional costs.
It provides a single point for maintaining Information & Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure in India.
According to the demands from the citizens of India, infrastructure of the government can be increased accordingly.
Efficient service delivery.
A security framework for the entire GI Cloud will lead to less environmental complexity and less potential vulnerability.
Increased user mobility.
Reduced effort in managing technology.
Ease of first time IT solution deployment.
Cost reduction.
It prescribes the standards around interoperability, integration, security, data security and portability etc.

What is DigiLocker?

DigiLocker is a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) as part of the Digital India Programme.

Launched in 2015, the program aims to make India go paperless while providing a secure document access platform on a public cloud.

It intends to provide citizens with ‘Digital Empowerment’ by allowing them to access authentic digital documents through a Digital Document Wallet.

The stored documents can also be shared and verified through DigiLocker.

Three key layers

The Government is aiming for the digital transformation with a philosophy ‘Minimum Government and Maximum Governance’, and it has identified three key layers-
- Cashless layer
- Paperless Layer and
- Presenceless Layer
Cashless layer is taken care of by National Payments Corporations of India (NPCI) through the Digital Cashless transfer.
Presenceless layer has been achieved by UIDAI.
Paperless Layer has been addressed by DigiLocker addressing the eKYC, design and verification process.

DigiLocker Benefits to Citizens

Important Documents Anytime, anywhere.
Authentic documents that are legally equal to originals.
Citizen’s consent is required for the exchange of digital documents.
Faster service Delivery in the areas of Government Benefits, Employment, Financial Inclusion, Education and Health.

DigiLocker Benefits to Agencies

Reduced Administrative Overhead: Aims towards paperless governance. It saves administrative costs by reducing the usage of paper and shortening the verification process.
Trusted issued documents are provided as part of the digital transformation.
Issued documents are retrieved in real-time from the issuing agency using DigiLocker.

Special Features and Achievements Under DigiLocker

A total of Rs 452 crore documents have been made available to citizens.
DigiLocker systems can be extremely useful in the event of a disaster. A successful example was demonstrated in the case of Kerala Flood, in which the IT department issued digital certificates to Kerala citizens during the Floods.
Students in various states have access to more than 40 crore Educational Documents from school boards and higher education institutions.
Digital DL/ RC (Driving Licence/Certificate of Registration) are made available to people.

Also Read:
Cloud Computing -Types, Operation, Services, Advantages and Limitations
What is Big Data (6Vs) and India’s initiatives on big data?