Nasscom to be an integral part of the Digital India drive

Several Indian IT companies may have burnt their hands by working with government departments and having Rs 4,000 - 5,000 crore worth of bills due for clearance, but industry body Nasscom has decided to still go ahead and forge a bond with the government on the 'Digital India Programme'.

The industry body while on the one hand is working on modalities to understand the delay in payment and how they can be fixed, they have also begun discussion with several of the ministries and be a part of the digital India roadmap.

To begin with, Nasscom will focus on creating and leveraging IT solutions across sectors like healthcare, education and financial inclusion; and also work on creating framework for the proposed smart cities.

"We are already in talks with individual ministries and working with them to come out with frameworks that aligns with the governments objective. NASSCOM is already working closely with IT players to lay the basic framework in patches which can be further merged with greater Digital India plan," said R Chandrashekar, president, Nasscom.

To begin with Nasscom is already in discussion with the Ministry of Health, and have signed an memorandum of understanding with NatHealth and have come up with four priority areas. To begin with Nasscom and Ministry of Health are planning to create a health platform that will allow multiple health services provider to provide services. Two, remote healthcare services, third area will be to focus on preventive healthcare and finally tackling the skills issue in this industry.

"These four areas have been identified. Each of this has a team which will further drill down into the details. Digital India is a long-term programme and based on our discussion with the ministry, each goal will be set with a time-frame that can be achieved in 12-18 months," added Chandrashekar.

Chandrashekar also added that since the new format will be using cloud infrastructure and shared hosting facilities the role for start-ups and smaller companies will also increases. Up until now several of the smaller IT services companies could not contribute to e-governance projects due to certain rules under the procurement segment on size.

Recent initiatives

- MoUD has entrusted Nasscom with the responsibility of developing the reference model on the technology architecture framework for Safe City, GIS and ICT

- Conducted two consultation workshops with MoUD for our Industry members on 100 Smart Cities initiative

- Inked partnership with NATHEALTH to leverage technology for improving patient care

- Has formed NATHealth - Nasscom Joint Council (NNJC) task force to identify key focus area and plan of action to establish synergies with the Health IT Programs of the Ministry