Zoho chosen for government's email service after 20 security audits, says founder Sridhar Vembu

Sridhar Vembu

Zoho had bagged the approval to power National Informatics Centre's (NIC) email system after a rigorous vetting process that included multiple audits of its codes, data centres and security practices, co-founder Sridhar Vembu said on October 13.

His remarks come amid debate over the government’s use of Zoho Mail for official communication.

In 2023, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had floated a tender for migration from the National Informatics Centre's email solution, where nearly 33 lakh government employees are registered, to a secure cloud service, which was won by Zoho Mail.

Watch: Sridhar Vembu on Zoho, Arattai. Swadeshi Tech, AI, and India’s Digital Future | Exclusive Interview

“[The announcement of the tender results].. was announced a while ago. And it has been steadily building up. All of the users are coming on board. About more than 1.5 million users are on board now. And we went through at least about 15, maybe 20 audits of covering all of the areas of our code, our data center, our security practices, all of it. Extensive number of audits we have gone through. And only after that, the NIC team selected Zoho,” Vembu told Moneycontrol.

He said the selection process involved “stiff competition” and a “competitive make-off,” rejecting suggestions that Zoho’s adoption was a sudden or politically driven move.

“This is not some new thing suddenly that was sprung, as some people are imagining,” Vembu said.

“What is new is the whole push given to more Swadeshi software, some broader movement. In other words, I want to contrast the two things. Zoho was selected after a massive contest. Now, in the Swadeshi movement, we are also realizing this company is made in India. We must back this. We must promote this. We need these national champions,” he added.

Earlier, MeitY Secretary S Krishnan had said that while Zoho powers NIC’s email system, the government’s “wider push will be for Indian products” rather than any single company. “It’s not fair to single out a single company and say we are pushing this. Our wider push will be for Indian products. There are a number of other Indian companies,” Krishnan told Moneycontrol.

Vembu said Zoho’s growing adoption extends beyond government offices. “It’s not only in government, I want to emphasize. We are seeing it in the private sector."

In July this year, in the wake of the global data leak affecting 16 billion login records, the government internally advised its employees to migrate to the new National Informatics Centre (NIC) email domain and platform, @mail.gov.in managed by Zoho, Moneycontrol earlier reported.