National Informatics Centre (NIC)
The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is an institute set up by the Indian government in 1976 to drive its technology and e-governance initiatives in the country.
Part-funded by the United Nations Development Fund which lent monetary assistance of $4.1 million (Rs 22.81 crore, approximately) at its inception, NIC functions under the Department of Information Technology.
The institute has the mandate to set up, implement and support all the information technology led-programs of the central and state governments and other government organizations in India.
NIC is also in charge of providing the information network which connects various law-making bodies throughout the country and collecting crucial data that helps the government in its socio-economic development plans. The Centre acts as the repository of all economic data and statistics of the central and state governments and monitors all IT projects undertaken by them.
See also: National eGovernance Plan (NeGP), National Data Warehouse of Official Statistics, Centre for Development for Advanced Computing (CDAC), SWAN, GARUDA, e-Choupal, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), core banking system