GNFC’s IT initiative to provide digital signature certificates

Our Corporate Bureau
27 December 2002

Mumbai: Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers Company (GNFC), a fertilisers major with substantial interest in IT business, based in Gujarat, has announced that it is setting up a commercial certifying authority infrastructure to provide digital signature certificates (DSC) based on public key infrastructure (PKI) technology, here.

This is a world-class infrastructure designed to stringent international standards capable of handling millions of users. Digital certificates are set to become key components of e-business transactions in the coming years.

GNFC will develop and bring to the market products and solutions that will help people and enterprises undertake e-business transactions on the Internet - securely and with legal validity. It has signed an agreement for procurement of technology and the software for the purpose with Entrust Inc, USA. Critical Path, USA, will provide the directory services for the same. Both companies are the world leaders in their respective field.

Says GNFC executive director P B Nanavati: “GNFC has made substantial investments in the IT infrastructure arena with offerings which include VSAT s, international gateway for bandwidth and the state-of-the-art Infotower in Ahmedabad. The certifying authority infrastructure will go a long way in providing the backbone infrastructure for e-business.”

Says GNFC Infotower chief of IT J S Kochar: “GNFC will bring to the market products and solutions which will help corporations, governments and individuals to carry out communication and transactions on the public networks securely and with trust. It will take care of major problems of authentication, data integrity and legal validity of the transactions.”

The digital certificate infrastructure helps certify that the user is genuine and is transacting within authorised limits. Digital signatures ensure authentication and non-repudiation, while the encryption algorithm assures confidentiality and data integrity.