RBI to get licence for digital signature
By Our Banking Bureau | 28 Mar 2002
Controller of certifying authorities (ministry of information technology) K N Gupta says the auditing process is currently under way at IDRBT. "The institute should get its licence in a months time, making it the second entity in India to be licensed by the government to provide digital signatures."
Gupta says next in line to receive the licence is the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which is also undergoing an audit at present. NIC is expected get the CA licence within a couple of months.
Gupta was speaking to media persons on the sidelines of the launch of Indias first digital signature contract note (DSCN) by ICICIdirect.com. The company will provide this facility to over 1,57,000 of its customers in association with Safescrypt, which was accorded the first CA licence by the government in February 2002.
Gupta says following the advertisement for CA licences, almost 230 entities, including MTNL, BSNL, VSNL and the department of post, had taken applications. "We have asked them to apply for auditing only when they have the requisite infrastructure in place."
Organisations filing their applications have to specify the date on which they will be ready for audit visits, he says. "And, this date should be within two months of filing the application. Over the next few months, we expect at least five to six more entities to obtain licences."
