Dr. Neeta Verma is the Director General of National Informatics Centre, a premier Technology organization of the Government of India. With a career spanning over three and a half decades, she has been instrumental in implementing high impact digital initiatives across the country. In her current role as DG NIC, she is spearheading the Digital Transformation agenda of the government through development of Digital Platforms for various initiatives of the Government in different sectors of development. With the mobile revolution in the country, she is also ensuring a Mobile-First Strategy by focusing on delivering government services through mobile phones in ICT solutions built by NIC.
She has been an active proponent of leading citizen engagement through technology at various levels of governance. She was instrumental in setting up of the technology platform for MyGov, which is a citizen engagement and crowd sourcing platform engaging over 14 million citizens. She brings an extensive experience in the field of open data and has led the launch of Open Data Platform to release government data in open for public good. She has also been instrumental in formulating Government Open Data License (GODL). During the early years of her career, she provided consulting services to various government departments in India and abroad in establishing their web presence.
Under her leadership, NIC established National Data Centers at various locations in the country and later launched the first National Cloud for Government in 2014 to provide state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure on-demand to Government Departments for delivery of citizen services.
She has aggressively worked towards adoption of Cloud by the Government departments through a Cloud-First Strategy to provide scalability, agility, reduce time to commission and attain high order of efficiency in ICT initiatives of the Government.
To leverage emerging technologies in governance, she led the establishment of one of its kind Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in Blockchain, Application Security, Artificial Intelligence, Micro Services and Data Analytics. These CoEs are working towards exploring the applications of emerging technologies for agility in governance and delivery of services to citizens.
She has also played a key role in setting up of NIC CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) in 2017. With her continuous contribution in the field of Information and Communication Technology, in 2019, She was featured amongst the top 55 inspiring women around the world who have showcased the prowess of technology in the government sector.
With her vision to transform government services, initiatives and schemes through the application of technology, she has helped National Informatics Centre emerge as a trusted partner to the Central government as well as the States Government in India. She oversees the 800+ offices of NIC which are established right from the Central headquarters at Delhi to State Offices and District Offices in India.
Being the head of a premier technology institution of the Government, she has interacted with Government Ministries, Departments, State Governments as well as Government Organizations in realizing their Digital Transformation agenda. She has also worked closely with the Indian Judiciary in their journey of Digital Transformation of the Courts pan India.
She has also guided NIC teams in productization of their popular solutions and has helped NIC establish its own world class Software products such as eOffice, eHospital, eProcurement, eAuction and eTransport, and many more.
She holds a Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an Executive Certificate on Digital Transformation in Government from the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research interests include applications of emerging technologies in Governance, Cyber Security, Data Centers, etc. Apart from publishing her research in national and international journals, she has also co-authored books on the role of technology in governance. She is regularly invited at various national and international conferences and forums to provide thought leadership around technology in e-Governance.
Support during COVID-19
During the COVID-19 crisis, under her leadership, NIC was entrusted with a wide range of responsibilities right from seamless provision of Network, Cloud to Messaging & Video Conferencing Services to design, development and implementation of various technology- solutions to help the government and its citizens during the times of distress. Under her leadership, NIC developed several new mobile applications to cater to the specific needs of different departments in Centre as well as State Governments for management of Home Quarantine, Containment Zones, COVID Hospitals, issuance of passes during lockdown, Digital Transfer of Subsidy to migrant labors pan India and many more.
She was entrusted by the Government to manage a mobile application, ‘AarogyaSetu’, which is enabled with latest technology for contact tracing to provision safety of citizens from the pandemic. With over 170 million downloads, AarogyaSetu app became the most downloaded government application in India. Apart from AarogyaSetu, she also led the development of RT-PCR Mobile app to manage the Data related to COVID-19 tests pan India.
Under her guidance, NIC has also worked closely with various national institutions such as Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to extend necessary technical advice and support during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also supervised the establishment of Central Data Hub to ensure integration of various systems and secure exchange of Data among different IT systems of the Government, which is currently being used by the Central and State Government entities pan India.
