Rajesh Gera to head Meity’s National Informatics Centre

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) announced earlier today that Rajesh Gera, who was the erstwhile deputy director general of the ministry’s undertaking organization, National Informatics Centre (NIC). Gera has spent 31 years in NIC, as well as a stint under the Ministry of Defence.

Prior to rejoining the NIC, Gera served as the chief executive officer of Defence Production - Information Technology (DP-IT) at the Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence. At NIC during his previous stint, he headed a number of projects including video conferencing, satellite networks and Aadhaar authentication, and has held leadership positions in Ministry of Health, Ministry of Ayush, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Niti Aayog, the Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Secretariat, President Secretariat, Labour and Employment Informatics, as well as the nationwide project of the National Database of Unorganized Workers.

The NIC is the technology partner organization of the central government, and was tasked with heading multiple projects in the information technology (IT) domain during the country’s boom in IT services in the 1990s. The division today is involved with various tasks such as satellite remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS), data centres, a national cloud platform and the Indian government’s adoption of blockchain technology.

The central organization is responsible for a wide range of tasks that also include platform security, adoption of online services for public utility, and oversee the government’s transition to paperless operation.

On this note, the NIC announced earlier today that it has successfully overseen the transition of the Uttar Pradesh state government’s assembly to working entirely paperlessly, by using its own web portal and tablets.

However, the NIC has also faced criticism before – notably in 2017 when an alleged hack of Aadhaar data was noted as an issue that originated out of an e-health platform developed by the NIC, which did not have adequate security standards.