eGovWatch: Government announces policy on open source software for eGovernance projects

Government has announced policy on open source software, as per which all government applications and services will be based on the open source software, to bring in increased transparency in administration.

The policy statement on Deity (Department of Electronics and Technology) website stated that the Government of India aims to make Government services digitally accessible to citizens in their localities and to ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs.

“To meet this objective, there is a need to set up a commensurate hardware and software infrastructure, which may require significant resources,” the statement added.

The new policy will also help in bringing down the costs of the government’s ICT projects as a lot of licensing cost will be saved because of use of open source software, sources said.

Usage of open source software (OSS) is cost effective, allows modification of source codes (key to any mobile/ computer programme or application) according to local needs and is free from royalty.