Sibal suggests NIC forms cloud service JV with private firms

Telecom and IT Minister Kapil Sibal today suggested that the Department of Electronics and Information Technology form a partnership with the private sector to provide cloud computing services to small and medium business entities to help them compete globally.
"Why can't NIC (National Informatics Centre) launch a company in which NIC has 49 per cent and private sector players have 51 per cent that can manage cloud and cater to the needs of the private sector," Sibal asked while inaugurating Meghraj, a cloud computing service developed by NIC for government departments.
Cloud computing facilitates sharing of resources, software and information on the Internet for a fee. It can help companies to cut costs as they do not have to invest heavily in infrastructure.

Sibal said cloud computing can help government departments save time and money as they can use NIC's infrastructure without having to invest in hardware or software.
"This is a great milestone. There will be lot of savings in this project as infrastructure will be provided by government of India. Even the manpower, software programmes will be provided by us," Sibal said.
The minister said the government should look at providing a similar service to the private sector, especially medium and small-scale enterprises that don't have the money or the expertise to modernise their business.

"Economy works on the basis of the private sector. To make the private sector more efficient, you should launch a cloud with private sector. MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) is not competitive with the rest of the world because each of them cannot have separate manpower, separate infrastructure for computing facility," he said.

The minister said the government should partner with private firms to understand the requirements of each sector and make efforts to provide tailor-made solutions.
"You provide expertise, security, basic service...Tell the private sector to focus on its needs and then create a cloud computing facility where the private sector is served so that they are more competitive in international market," Sibal said.
J Satyanarayana, secretary in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, said the JV formation "will be done in three months.