Oracle to help drive Maharashtra’s digital transformation

Oracle and the government of Maharashtra have teamed up to advance the state’s digital transformation initiatives.

According to the MoU signed between the two, Oracle Cloud solutions will be leveraged in order to develop Maharashtra’s smart city program, with the goal of making the urban landscape more livable and inclusive, while driving economic growth at the same time.

A Center of Excellence (CoE) will be set up to help accelerate the state’s smart city program and modernize the government’s technology solutions. The CoE, housed in Mumbai, will serve as a research platform to design, develop and test new capabilities that will deliver better government-to-citizen (G2C) and government-to-business (G2B) services.

Using the cloud, the CoE will enable rapid innovation with minimal capital expenditures. In addition, the CoE will offer a flexible and scalable common framework, as well as a team of experts, allowing individual cities to scale and replicate its solutions.

Both Oracle and the government of Maharashtra will invest in IT infrastructure, training and skillset resources as well as management of the CoE. The Maharashtra government launched a programme earlier in April to develop 10 smart cities, adding to the 33 announced by the central government in the 100 smart cities initiative

“Cloud computing has changed the landscape of governance. It has the power to enable inclusive growth and to transform the state into a digitally empowered society,” said Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister, Government of Maharashtra. “The CoE is a step in that direction and will make more government services available with the click of a button.”

“We are thrilled to further our commitment in India by working with the government of Maharashtra and the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, to help position India as a world-class design and manufacturing epicenter. The Cloud Center of Excellence powered by Oracle will play a key role in improving the lives of the people of this state,” Oracle CEO Safra Catz added.

“By moving to the Cloud, the government has the opportunity to create a digitally empowered society and a growing knowledge economy. We look forward to making this partnership a success.”

This initiative follows Oracle’s recent commitment to support the country’s global digital leadership. Oracle unveiled a massive, state-of-the-art campus centered in Bengaluru, nine incubation centres throughout India, and an initiative to train more than half a million students each year to develop computer science skills.