Lok Sabha Question No. 2990 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-12-20
Subject: Websites Maintained by NIC
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: M. K. Raghavan

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTORNICS AND  INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK   SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2990

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 20/12/2023

## WEBSITES MAINTAINED BY NIC

## 2990.   SHRI M.K. RAGHAVAN:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

(a) whether the Government has noticed any issues in Government websites maintained by National Informatics Centre and if so, the details thereof;

(b)  whether the  Government has taken any step to increase the efficiency  of Government websites including NIC mail, if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether the Government has noticed the disruption in Government websites affecting the essential needs of lakhs of public; and

(d)  if  so,  the  details  thereof  along  with  the  steps  taken  by  the  Government  to  avoid  such disruptions?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TEHNOLOGY (SHRI RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR)

(a)  to  (d):    National  Informatics  Centre  (NIC)  provides  Information  and  Communication Technology (ICT) and eGovernance support to Central Government, State Governments, UT Administrations, Districts, and other Government bodies. NIC has developed several digital solutions  and  platforms  for  the  socio-economic  development  of  the  country  to  empower citizens.  It  offers  wide  range  of  services  like  Multi-Gigabit  PAN  India  Network  NICNET, National Knowledge Network, National Data Centres, National Cloud, Video Conferencing, Email  and  Messaging  Services,  Command  and  Control  Centre,  Multi-layered  GIS  based Platform, Domain Registration and Webcast.

The uptime of the hosting environment offered by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) for Government websites was 99.98% during the financial year 2022-23, thereby ensuring high level of online accessibility to such Government websites. Further, to ensure that Government websites are efficient and designed and managed in a manner conducive to delivery of access and services to users without disruption, Government has in place-

- (i) comprehensive Guidelines for Indian Government Websites and Apps (GIGW);
- (ii) certification  by  the  Standards,  Testing  and  Quality  Certification  Directorate, Ministry  of  Electronics  and  Information  Technology  for  periodic  compliance with GIGW;
- (iii) a requirement that websites be audited initially and subsequently as necessary through an auditor empanelled by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In);
- (iv) reporting  of  cyber  incidents  to  CERT-In  and  NIC  Computer  Emergency Response  Team,  which  issue  alerts  and  advisories  from  time  to  time  and suggest remediation measures on incidents reported; and
- (v) performance  monitoring  by  the  NIC  data  centre  and  the  website-owning department/organisation of the functions respectively performed by them.

However, users from time to time may experience issues in accessing websites due to issues in the telecom network, web application management and the user side, such as:

- (i) Downtime or slowness in the telecom network at the data centre end;
- (ii) Occasional spikes in website usage beyond the designed capacity of the server of the website-owning department/organisation;
- (iii) Performance and optimisation issues in newly rolled out website functionalities; and
- (iv) User  end  issues,  such  as  access  network  issues  and  the  configurations,  use settings, browser and operating system versions and hardware capacity of the user device being sub-optimal for or unsupported by the website.

To address the said issues, Government undertakes training of the technical teams concerned as well as-

- (i) network redundancy and network capacity planning;
- (ii) server capacity augmentation;
- (iii) bug-fixing, code optimisation and designation of an officer of the rank of Joint Secretary as the Web Information Manager or Chief Information Officer by the Ministry/Department concerned with websites of Government of India; and
- (iv) publishing  on  the  home/landing  page  the  browser  version(s)  for  which  the website is optimised.

During the financial year 2022-23, NIC email service had an uptime of 99.99%. To ensure high efficiency, the networks in the Ministries and Departments of the Government of India are enhanced from time to time for ensuring seamless access to NIC email service.

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