From E-Pramaan to Indian App Store, IT Ministry’s C-DAC at Forefront of Digital Transformation: Jt Director to News18

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), an autonomous scientific society under the Ministry of Electronics & IT,  has been involved in developing end-to-end state-of-the-art products, systems, services, and solutions for the country.

Kapil Kant Kamal, Joint Director at C-DAC Mumbai, told News18 that the centre has been at the forefront of the IT revolution. The organisation has been constantly building capacities in emerging technologies, innovating and leveraging its expertise and skill sets to develop, as well as deploy IT products and solutions for different sectors of the economy.

C-DAC has provided technical assistance to government agencies establishing public digital services in a number of industries, including transportation, health, education, agriculture, logistics and mobile computing.

According to Kamal, “These initiatives and solutions will make it easier for people to access services by providing a standard, smooth interface. To ensure interoperability and encourage data sharing for improved online services, modern technology and standards were incorporated into the architecture and development of these platforms.”

Services for all

Kamal said that under the Digital India initiative, C-DAC Mumbai had implemented various national aspiration projects in the field of e-governance product development. These include:

1. E-Pramaan (MeriPehchaan): It is a framework for safely and securely authenticating individuals for accessing services via desktop and mobile platforms. It provides multiple factors of authentication such as password (text, image, grid pattern based), OTP (SMS, email, smart app), digital signatures (provided by Indian CA), and biometric (finger, iris, face) authentication. The solution also ensures security for which it has many fraud management techniques implemented.
2. Mobile Seva: It is a platform to deliver government services to citizens over mobile devices using SMS, USSD, Voice, LBS, and/ or mobile applications. It is used by almost 4,000 departments.
3. Aadhaar Data Vault: This stores Aadhaar numbers in an encrypted format and generates reference numbers to access them complying with the guidelines of UIDAI. Hence, the Aadhaar numbers are locked securely in the vault with the decryption key in Hardware Security Module (HSM). The reference number is different for each service. C-DAC provides Aadhaar Data Vault as a solution as well as a service.
4. C-DAC’s Aadhaar Ecosystem: Aadhaar-related authentication services are accessible only through the Authentication Service Agency (ASA) and Authentication User Agencies (AUA) which are trusted partners of UIDAI for providing Aadhaar services. C-DAC as an ASA as well as AUA provides access to various Aadhaar Services such as e-KYC.
5. OLabs: It is established on the premise that lab experiments may be taught more rapidly and affordably through the Internet. The labs can also be made available to students who do not have access to physical labs or when equipment is scarce or expensive. The labs designed for classes 6 to 12 are aligned with the NCERT/ CBSE and can also be used by state board schools in English, Marathi, Hindi and Malayalam. An offline version and an Android app are also available for use.
6. mSeva AppStore: It is an indigenous platform for hosting Indian apps, complete with its own policy and guidelines for developers. The apps go through rigorous security testing before hosting providing security assurance to the citizens while downloading the apps from this app store.

Kamal said that with the launch of the Digital India Programme, the government of India hopes to develop e-Governance and m-Governance schemes. The programme’s overarching objective is to convert India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, he added.

“With the implementation of mobile governance platforms, citizens can avail of integrated public services through multiple mobile-based channels in a seamless and timely manner. This will benefit citizens to keep track of Government-to-Citizen (G2C) communications and transparently receive timely updates,” he noted.

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