India’s IT Chief: Govt could soon create a Chief Information Officer role under PMO in 2018

Harsimran JulkaMoneycontrol News 

India is soon likely to have a position of a chief information officer in the Prime Minister’s Office who will be responsible for integrating IT strategies and policies related to various departments, highly placed sources in the Government told Moneycontrol.

The role likely to be placed under the Prime Minister’s Office will be akin to the role of a White House CIO, who is also responsible for designing an interoperable IT infrastructure of the Central Government.

“The role is likely to be placed under the Prime Minister’s Office akin to a CIO role in the White House. The role could be announced early next year,” sources in the government said, requesting anonymity.

In the US, the White House CIO is also responsible for managing the IT spending of the federal government.

In India, such a role will become important as a large part of financial transactions and technology backend in India is likely to be inter-linked via the 16-digit unique ID Aadhaar number by next financial year.

A mismatch between procurement and IT policies of various departments in the Government often leads to designing of e-governance software which don’t synergise with each other. This leads to lack of transparency between departments and leads to leakage of funds, due to non-linkage of technologies.

The CIO role could also push for open source procurement of software which could lead to more efficient spending of taxpayers' money on IT spending by the Union Government.

The CIO role could also be responsible for designing an effective IT diplomacy strategy of India, as various governments are looking towards India to help them create an Aadhaar like infrastructure to streamline e-governance.

harsimran.julka@nw18.com