The Indian Government is already trying to DIY FOSS - Should it?

In a previous post, I wrote about 8 things a government can do about FOSS where I talked about categorizing the governments actions in 8 distinct ways. From what I've been reading online, it looks like the Indian Government is already trying to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) FOSS. To recap, DIY-ing is the very last option in the "8 things" and it's risky. Especially in the case of FOSS, DIY is risky. Given the scale of government operations, any DIY solution that the government comes up with gain widespread usage, which can then lead to inertia. Remember that DIY-ing requires not just building expertise in FOSS but also continually maintaining it. If the Indian government doesn't maintain the necessary expertise, it risks the FOSS project falling behind the curve.

Let's look at the Samarth eGov project as an example of the Indian government DIY-ing FOSS.

Samarth project aims at creating an Open Source, Open Standard enabled Robust, Secure, Scalable and Evolutionary Process Automation Engine for Universities and Higher Education Institutions. The project is being implemented by University of Delhi (DU).

In "Universities Onboard" section of the webpage, 57 Central, State and TEQIPs (Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme) are listed. In the "Coverage" section of the webpage, they state that the software is currently being used in 20+ States and UTs of India and boasts of that more than 14,000 users. See what I mean by reach? How many FOSS projects can you think of that are used this widely and were adopted this quickly.

Note that I can't find the exact date when this project was launched. I'm seeing news reports from mid-2020 about various Universities beginning to use the Samarth eGov platform but I can't find official documentation on when it was officially created. The product booklet contains a "Product Snapshot" from 2019 so maybe the project started in 2019. I don't know. Do you?

But my main issue with the Samarth eGov project is that I can't find the code. I should have probably started with this. The description above of the project uses the words "Open Source" so where is the code? I've scoured the entire website and I haven't been able to find a link to a code repository e.g. a GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket repository.

By comparison, FOSSEE is also a DIY FOSS initiative by the Indian Government. One of the projects under the FOSSEE umbrella is the eSim project and in their Downloads page, they provide links to code repositories where we can browse the source code, all of which are hosted under the FOSSEE organization on GitHub. That's what I'm looking for. Where is the source code for Samarth eGov and why is it not listed on the main website?

Also. Why did the Indian Government even fund the creation of a new FOSS project? Samarth eGov is supposed to solve the ERP issues facing Indian Universities so did they evaluate existing FOSS ERP solutions, for example ERPNext? What are the downsides of ERPNext that Samarth eGov fixes? Did the Indian Government try to adopt ERPNext and run into issues? If so, what were they? Instead of creating an entirely new FOSS project, did the Indian Government evaluate the possibility of contributing to an existing FOSS project and improving it?

Until recently, I naively thought that it was a good thing when Governments get involved in FOSS. I don't think so anymore. I can't tell if the Indian Government has devoted the necessary expertise for this FOSS project to succeed because I can't see the software. I should stop calling it a FOSS project because the code isn't accessible, from what I can see.

Do you know of other FOSS initiatives by the Indian Government? If so, please tell me about it. I'd love to see more examples of the Indian Government DIY-ing FOSS.

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