India migrates government emails to Zoho amid transparency, favoritism concerns
The Government of India is migrating its official email system, covering more than a million accounts, from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to Zoho. Since its inception in 1976 under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, NIC has served as the exclusive IT support system for government agencies.
For decades, NIC’s email system powered government communication through its @gov.in and @nic.in domains. The shift to Zoho — a private SaaS provider — marks a significant departure from India’s traditional model of self-managed digital infrastructure.
While many hailed this development as a “Make in India moment” for enterprise technology, critics described it as a quiet case of preferential treatment. The real question lies somewhere in between: did the Chennai based cloud service provider win on merit, or was this a policy tilt disguised as digital transformation?
The reasons for shift
Recent ransomware attacks exposed cyber vulnerabilities in the old government email infrastructure and raised concerns about its readiness for modern demands. In response, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) initiated an open tender process through the Digital India Corporation (DIC) in 2023, following the AIIMS ransomware incident.
Sources within the government IT ecosystem indicate that while NIC’s email system has been secure, it struggled to keep pace with modern requirements—particularly in scalability, user experience, spam protection, and mobile integration. Zoho, in contrast, has spent years refining its enterprise collaboration suite, Zoho Workplace, and its mail infrastructure already serves millions of global users.
“The reality is that maintaining a robust, 24×7 mail service at national scale requires hyperscale expertise and constant investment,” said a former NIC official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “NIC’s team is competent, but budget cycles and bureaucracy slow innovation. Zoho could simply deliver faster.”
This reasoning aligns with what many governments worldwide have done—transitioning from in-house systems to commercial, cloud-based platforms with stringent security vetting. Consequently, the government decided to migrate its email services to Zoho’s platform.
MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan clarified that the initiative is part of a “wider push for Indian products” rather than support for any individual company, saying, “It’s not fair to single out one company and say we are pushing this. Our wider push will be for Indian products. There are a number of other Indian companies”
In a separate statement, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu stated that the company was selected after over 20 security audits and a competitive bidding process with multiple vendors.
But critics have several questions that have remained unanswered so far!
The unclear picture
While conclusive proof of procedural wrongdoing remains absent, observable gaps in disclosure such as the unavailability of tender records, an unverified bidders’ list, and post-selection political signaling, leave questions of transparency unresolved. Though the choice of Zoho may align with goals of digital sovereignty and infra modernization, the opaqueness of the documentation process should have been addressed to ensure fairness and public trust.
The list of bidders, technical scoring matrix, or price evaluation, which are usually disclosed in most public tenders, have not been published in the public domain. This is what raises lingering transparency concerns
In most media references (Moneycontrol, Economic Times, and India Today), the MeitY maintained that Zoho underwent 15–20 security audits and was selected after a “competitive process,” yet no official documentation confirming how competitors fared has been made available.
No official list of competing firms has been disclosed. However, based on the DIC’s 2023 tender and industry reporting, several Indian SaaS and enterprise email solutions were believed to have been eligible or considered:
- HCL Software – offers enterprise collaboration suites.
- TCS iON Digital Communication Suite.
- Zoho’s major domestic peer, Freshworks, though usually more CRM-focused, has enterprise messaging integration capabilities.
- Reliance Jio’s email and workplace solutions were also rumored participants under its JioCloudGov offerings.
What raises even more questions
The timing and manner of ministerial endorsements added to skepticism. For instance, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw publicly announced his switch to Zoho’s office suite on X, urging others to follow the “Swadeshi call,” even before the government formally explained the rationale behind the large migration. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and others also promoted Zoho’s tools in quick succession, which fueled perception that political direction, not process, drove the move.
Not only that, Zoho’s Arattai platform, touted as an Indian alternative to WhatsApp, saw a sudden surge in downloads, rising from about 10,000 in August to over 10 million in just a few weeks. Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu described the surge as a “100x increase” in traffic.
Several tech professionals and independent journalists questioned whether competing Indian SaaS firms were adequately considered. Critics also faulted the process for not evaluating open-source alternatives, calling it “crony capitalism—Swadeshi edition.”
Global Precedents: Governments trust vendors, cautiously
Across the world, government email outsourcing is not unusual. U.S. federal agencies run on Microsoft 365’s FedRAMP-certified government cloud. The U.K. operates its gov.uk mail systems on managed Microsoft environments through its G-Cloud framework. Even the EU institutions use commercial vendors, but under stringent data sovereignty rules, regular audits, and contractual restrictions on provider access.
The operative difference lies in transparency and governance. In these jurisdictions, procurement terms, audit results, and data residency guarantees are often made public or subjected to parliamentary oversight.
In India, however, the Zoho deal remains opaque—neither MeitY nor Zoho has published audit details, the exact contractual model, or whether NIC retains any operational oversight. Choosing an Indian company is commendable, provided it follows transparent procurement, clear service-level accountability, and independent audits.
Challenges ahead
The migration, while promising, will not be without hurdles:
- User adoption and resistance: Government employees accustomed to legacy systems and private email services may resist the change, undermining adoption.
- Enforcement of policy: Ensuring exclusive use of the new platform across diverse departments requires robust oversight; lax enforcement could lead to continued reliance on unapproved services.
- Technical infrastructure and scalability: Managing the load of millions of users demands resilient infrastructure, with consistent uptime, spam protection, mobile integration, and responsive support.
- Data sovereignty and security: Maintaining strict data residency without compromising security will require continuous audits and transparent reporting to build trust.
- Interoperability and integration: Smooth integration with existing government workflows, legacy systems, and third-party applications is critical for operational efficiency.
- Transparency and governance: Regular public disclosure of audits, service-level metrics, and contract terms is essential to mitigate concerns over procedural opacity.
Successfully navigating these challenges will be crucial if this migration is to serve as an example for digital transformation in India’s public sector. If Zoho delivers a faster, more secure, and more usable email system, supported by verifiable audits and free from vendor lock-in, this move could set a benchmark for Indian SaaS adoption in the public sector. If not, it risks being remembered as another opaque procurement shortcut in the name of indigenization.
