‘Guidelines for Indian government websites’ received the gold award in the ‘ICT’ category and ‘central government’ sector at the Skoch Digital Inclusion Awards 2012. The award was presented to the group by Mr Salman Khurshid, Hon’ble Minister, Ministry of Law & Justice & Ministry of Minority Affairs at a function held on 18th of September 2012.

NIC has formulated ‘Guidelines for Indian Government Websites’ with a view to make government websites citizen centric and user friendly and at the same time comply with international standards These guidelines have been developed in accordance to the internationally accepted standards and address the leading practices involved in the entire lifecycle of website, web portal and web application right from its conceptualization, design, development and maintenance to the management stage.

The focus areas of these guidelines are

·         maintaining a consistent identity of the Indian Government websites

·         allowing proper policies and disclaimers in place to enhance trust levels of the citizens

·         devising a structured approach towards maintaining quality and scope of the content

·         utilizing good design features to enhance the user experience

·         confirming to effective management and website promotion

·         confirming to leading practices accepted wordwide

·         addressing the needs of the differently abled

These guidelines have also been adopted by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievance (DARPG) and government departments have been advised to comply with these while developing their websites.

A website has also been set up at http://web.guidelines.gov.in where a full text of the guidelines is available.