evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

SugamyaWeb — India's Cloud-Based Accessibility Testing Platform for Government Websites

India · New Delhi · See the India profile · See the New Delhi profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 24% 92/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

India's SugamyaWeb lets government departments self-test websites against GIGW accessibility standards; 200+ departments used it to fix 100,000+ issues, even as reporting finds accessible central-government sites frozen at 95 since 2020.

200+ departments
Government departments using SugamyaWeb (initial reporting) (initial reporting)
253 departments
Government departments using SugamyaWeb (later count) (later reporting)
400+ websites
Websites covered (initial reporting) (initial reporting)
100,000+ issues
Accessibility defects resolved (initial reporting) (initial reporting)
1,500+ websites
Websites tested under GIGW 3.0 (under GIGW 3.0)
350,000+ issues
Issues resolved under GIGW 3.0 (under GIGW 3.0)
95 sites (unchanged since 2020)
Certified-accessible central-government websites (as of Sept 2024)
676 of ~6,700
Accessible state/union-territory government websites (as of Sept 2024)
>33 % reduction
Accessible India Campaign budget cut (2022–23 to 2023–24)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) / National Informatics Centre, under the GIGW and Accessible India Campaign
Period
December 2022–present
Keywords
digital government, disability inclusion, web accessibility

Context

SugamyaWeb sits inside India's wider Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan (Accessible India Campaign), the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities' national programme launched in 2015 to make the built environment, transport and ICT accessible. Launched in December 2022 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology alongside the National Informatics Centre, SugamyaWeb is a cloud-based, self-service platform that lets government departments scan their own websites against the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites and Apps (GIGW), which incorporate WCAG standards.

Activities

Departments use the tool to get a prioritised list of accessibility fixes for their websites, without needing to commission external audits for each check.

Results

By its own reporting, the platform has been adopted by more than 200 government departments — a later count puts it at 253 — covering over 400 websites and helping resolve more than 100,000 individual accessibility defects; under the newer GIGW 3.0 standard the tool has since tested over 1,500 websites and logged more than 350,000 resolved issues.

Conclusions

Independent reporting by Newslaundry in September 2024 found the number of certified-accessible central-government websites had been stuck at 95 since 2020, that only 676 of roughly 6,700 state and union-territory government websites were accessible, and that the Accessible India Campaign's own budget had been cut by more than a third between 2022–23 and 2023–24 — showing that self-service tooling can drive department-level fixes at scale, but sustained political and budgetary commitment is what turns tool adoption into a fully accessible public web.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — A centrally-built, cloud-based self-service testing platform run by MeitY/NIC, reducing per-department costs that would otherwise require external accessibility audits.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Launched December 2022, upgraded to test against the newer GIGW 3.0 standard; operating continuously since, though the parent Accessible India Campaign's own budget was reportedly cut by over a third between 2022–23 and 2023–24.
Staffing & skills
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and National Informatics Centre platform team, Department-level focal staff running self-service scans

Conditions for success

  • Legal/policy backing from the GIGW standard and the Accessible India Campaign
  • Self-service, cloud-based design lowering the per-department cost of testing versus commissioning external audits
  • Sustained budget and political commitment to convert fixed defects into certified-accessible status

Common failure modes

  • Rising tool adoption did not translate into the campaign's headline target: certified-accessible central-government websites stayed at 95 from 2020 to at least September 2024
  • Only 676 of roughly 6,700 state and union-territory government websites were accessible, and just 476 of those were still live
  • The Accessible India Campaign's own budget was cut by more than a third between 2022–23 and 2023–24

Where it fits

Governance type
central government agency-led (MeitY/NIC)
Scale
national
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Replication kit

Reusable artefacts from this practice — as published by their sources.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Similar practices you may find useful