India has built one of the world’s fastest digital payment systems. Its Aadhaar database covers over 142 crore people. Its 5G rollout connected 99.6% of districts in under two years. And yet, on any given day, somewhere in this country, a government website is timing out on a citizen who just needed to download a certificate.
That gap between India’s shining digital ambitions and its frustrating digital reality is not an accident. It is the predictable result of how the government spends its technology budget.
The numbers are not small
The Union Budget for 2024–25 allocated Rs 21,936 crore to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) the central body that funds and oversees almost everything digital in the government, from websites and apps to cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity. That is not pocket change. That is roughly the GDP of a small country.
A large chunk of this money flows through the National Informatics Centre or NIC, as it is commonly known. Established in 1976, NIC is essentially the government’s in-house technology arm. It builds and manages websites, applications, and digital infrastructure for central and state governments across the country. It operates four national data centres in Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, and Bhubaneswar and has offices in all 36 states and union territories, plus over 700 district-level outposts.
In theory, NIC is the backbone of Digital India. In practice, ask any Indian who has tried to renew a driving licence online, or filed a grievance on a government portal, and you will hear a different story.
The cheapest bid wins. Quality does not.
Here is how most government websites get built in India. A department decides it needs a portal. It floats what is called a Request for Proposal, a tender document, often running over 200 pages, written by officials who have rarely, if ever, spoken to the people who will actually use the site. The contract then goes to the lowest bidder. Not the most experienced team. Not the one with the best track record. Just the cheapest one that ticks the boxes.
This is India’s famous L1 procurement system, the practice of awarding government contracts to the “lowest responsive bidder.” It was designed for buying cement and steel. Software is not cement. A road does not need to be updated every six months. A website does. But the rules have not caught up.
Nandan Nilekani, who co-founded Infosys and later architected the Aadhaar system, put it plainly: “Government procurement models are geared towards buying cement and steel, not software which evolves constantly.” When cost is the only filter, user experience is not even a line item. Accessibility testing, load testing, mobile optimisation none of these are considered essential. Once a site is launched, it is often left untouched for years.
What citizens actually experience
The consequences are felt every day by ordinary people. DigiLocker, which stores official documents for over 53 crore registered users, suffered a major outage in 2024 that disrupted access to billions of documents for two days. There were no disclosure requirements, no defined redress mechanisms, and no obligation to even inform affected users. People simply could not access their own records.
The Income Tax e-filing portal, which processed over 7.51 crore returns in AY 2022–23 a number that has only grown since famously crashed under load when it was relaunched in June 2021, on the very day the Finance Minister introduced it. IRCTC, the railway ticketing site that handles hundreds of millions of bookings, is a national punchline for its ability to freeze at the worst possible moments. These are not bugs. They are features of a system that does not prioritise the end user.
The NIC monopoly problem
Part of the structural problem is NIC’s position. As the government’s preferred technology partner, it operates with little competitive pressure. There is no alternative it has to outperform, no market it has to win. Government departments that want a website built have, for decades, defaulted to NIC because it is the known, safe, administratively convenient option.
In April 2023, Jio Platforms won a Rs 350 crore contract to manage and improve NIC’s cloud services, a sign that even the government recognises NIC cannot do everything itself. But the deeper reform introducing genuine competition, bringing in design talent, measuring success by whether citizens can actually use the product has been slower to arrive.
When it works, it really works
The frustrating truth is that India has proved it can build world-class digital infrastructure when it wants to. UPI processed over 1,867 crore transactions worth Rs 24.77 lakh crore in April 2025 alone. Aadhaar has enrolled 142 crore people. The Direct Benefit Transfer system has saved over Rs 3.48 lakh crore in leakages since its implementation.
What made these work? They were built differently. Aadhaar was run by a dedicated agency UIDAI with mission-driven leadership, private sector talent brought in on contract, and a phased approach that tested small before scaling big. UPI was built by NPCI, a not-for-profit with banking sector accountability. Neither was built the way most government websites are built: on the lowest bid, by a vendor with no skin in the game, handed over and forgotten.
The fix is not a mystery
Researchers and technologists have been saying the same things for years. Stop evaluating IT vendors only on cost. Bring in user research before writing a single line of code. Hold vendors accountable to performance metrics after launch, not just at delivery. Build internal government capacity so officials understand what they are buying. Treat digital infrastructure like the public utility it is with regulation, transparency, and accountability.
India’s digital economy contributed 11.74% to national income in 2022–23 and is projected to reach nearly one-fifth of the total economy by 2030. At that scale, a broken government website is not a minor inconvenience. It is a drag on growth, a barrier to welfare, and a daily reminder to millions of citizens that the state is still not quite ready for them.
The money is being spent. The question is whether it is being spent well or whether India will keep building expensive systems that citizens route around, because calling an agent is still easier than using the official website.
Subscribe Deshwale on YouTube
