The Indian government's initiative to make digital signatures mandatory is what is driving the digital signatures market in India. Thanks to the move, the seven certifying authorities in the country have almost doubled their revenue from the sale of digital signatures over the past 18 months.
Last year, the ministry of company affairs (MCA) had made it mandatory for registered companies to use digital signatures for e-filing of documents. The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, provides legal sanctity to digital signatures whereby electronic documents, that have been digitally signed, are treated on par with paper documents. Out of over 7.5 lakh companies, nearly 44,000 companies have registered themselves and more than 18.33 lakh documents have also been filed through the MCA21 programme as on March 31, 2007.
Digital signatures involve the use of keys (one 'public' and the other 'private') to encrypt data (scrambling it so that only the person with the appropriate key can read it). With the private key and right software, an individual can insert digital signatures in documents that others will find extremely difficult to forge. The prices of the keys range between Rs 300 and Rs 1,200, depending on the certifying authority. The keys are valid for a 1-2 year period and have to be renewed subsequently. Currently, there are seven designated certifying authorities in the country -- Sify Communications, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS is also the MCA21 project implementing agency), National Informatics Centre, IDRBT Certifying Authority, (n)Code Solutions, MTNL Trust Line and Customs & Central Excise.
The Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA), department of information and technology (DIT), N Vijayaditya, says: "With the growing use of the internet, stringent security measures have become imperative, and digital signatures currently provide almost 100 per cent security, and the future lies in such a technology." S R Kannan, Head, Security, Sify adds, "As long as the government initiatives are in place, the digital signature market will do good business. Although we were in the business since 2001-02, it's only over the past one-and-a-half years -- after the MCA-21 ruling came into being -- that we have got 90 per cent of our registrations. We currently have certified almost 120,000 signatures."
M Vidyasagar, Executive Vice-President, TCS, concurs: "The market has not had a uniform growth. It has seen growth in spurts depending on external stimulus, primarily government policies. The best example is the MCA-21 will helped us to more than double our sales in the past year-and-a-half helping us to touch the 2 lakh mark this year." "It is the government initiatives -- rather than the need for security -- that will help the growth in the digital signatures market," says S R Kannan, adding: "We have seen compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30 per cent over the years, and we are expecting growth of over 50 per cent in the future with various government departments promoting digital signatures."
Vidyasagar, however, is cautious about the rise in business which he proclaims as "a facilitator and not a standalone business". He reasons: " We have witnessed a 30 per cent growth but that is due to the mandatory requirements imposed by the MCA, once most of the companies have registered for digital signatures, growth rate will soon sharply decline to 5-10 per cent."
Cyber law expert and advocate, Supreme Court, Pavan Duggal, too opines: "The government has proposed to substitute the term digital signatures with electronic signatures that will widen the scope of the term. Till then, digital signatures will enjoy dominance in the field." Duggal, however, says "there is quite a bright future for digital signatures in India till about 2010". He adds that "though the robust growth of digital signatures is unquestionable, its popularity in India comes with a question mark. There is a desperate need to promote such a technology to create awareness. There is also the problem of internet penetration in the country. Once that rises digital signatures will also see a rise." |
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