12.68 lakh govt email accounts migrated to Zoho, Centre informs Lok Sabha

The government has migrated nearly 12.68 lakh official email accounts from various ministries and departments to a Zoho-based platform, the Lok Sabha has been informed.

Of these, 7.45 lakh accounts belong to Central government employees, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said in a written reply to a question by TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee.

“The number of accounts migrated to Zoho platform is around 12.68 Lakhs which includes 7.45 Lakhs Central Government Employees,” Minister of State, MeitY, Jitin Prasada said in the response.

There are about 50.14 Central government employees. Prasada said in the response on 10 December that the migration has been carried out through the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which remains the mandated provider of official email services for government ministries and departments.

He said that the government’s contract with Zoho ensures that the ownership of all data and intellectual property generated during the engagement remains with the government, with provisions for continuity and rollback when required.

“To ensure this, the government through NIC has selected a Master System Integrator (MSI) – M/s Zoho as a robust cloud-based email solution capable of supporting all Government users. The model ensures professional upgrades, seamless migration of existing accounts, and integration of modern office productivity tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software,” he said.

In 2023, MeitY floated a tender to move government email accounts from NIC’s email system to a secure cloud-based service. Zoho won the contract.

Prasada did not provide details on the total cost of the migration, including spending on software licences, infrastructure and training, nor the annual recurring expenses since the 2023-24 financial year, as sought by Banerjee.

“The security architecture of the e-mail platform has been defined rigorously to protect critical government data. The solution mandates that all email data be encrypted both at rest and in transit, with specific requirements for end-to-end encryption using RSA 256 and TLS 1.3 standards,” the response said.

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In a social media post, Amit Shah announced that he has switched his email and also disclosed his official email address for people to note for future reference.