Government Shifts 1.668 Million Emails to Zoho Cloud; Cost Incurs ₹180 Crore!

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has reportedly informed the Lok Sabha that the Central Government has, to date, migrated approximately 1.668 million official email accounts to Zoho’s cloud-based platform. A total of approximately ₹180.10 crore has been spent on this entire process so far. According to the government, this step was taken with the objective of establishing a secure and sovereign email system.

This migration was executed through the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which selected Zoho to serve as the Master System Integrator. This selection was finalized following a bidding process conducted via the Government e-Marketplace (GeM-CPPP), which included a ‘Proof of Concept’ phase involving shortlisted companies and government user groups.

According to Moneycontrol, the government states that the aim of this initiative is to create an email system for various ministries and departments wherein the government retains complete control over data and intellectual property. In other words, this platform has been designed with a strong focus on data security and digital sovereignty.

In terms of cost, the expense for email accounts ranges from approximately ₹170 to ₹300 per user per month, depending on the mailbox storage capacity, which varies from 30GB to 100GB. According to MeitY, payments are made based on the actual number of accounts migrated.

It is worth noting that in December, the government had informed Parliament that approximately 1.268 million email accounts had been shifted to this platform, 745,000 of which belonged to central government employees. This figure has now risen to 1.668 million, underscoring the rapid expansion of this project.