Virtusa Corporation, a global IT services company that offers a broad spectrum of business consulting and outsourcing services, yesterday (14) announced that it has developed an innovative Web portal and supporting middleware service integration platform for Sri Lanka's Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA).

Part of the government's eSriLanka initiative, the "Lanka Gate" portal reduces costs while improving transparency and empowering traditionally underserved populations such as the rural poor, women and youth through increased access to information and communication tools, quoting Virtusa Business Wire reported.

With various agencies running on different platforms with minimal or no integration, the government of Sri Lanka recognized the need to provide a standard service platform to facilitate seamless interaction for its citizens, departments, and businesses in a secure, reliable and transparent environment. The ICTA tapped Virtusa to create a new portal to serve as a primary interface for all users, including citizens, non-citizens, businesses, agents and government employees, it said.

Virtusa created the Lanka Gate country portal, as well as an underlying middleware tier called the Lanka Interoperability Exchange (LIX), which allows users to connect to various government organizations and businesses in Sri Lanka.

Lanka Gate supports the Sinhala, Tamil and English languages, as well as both traditional Web and mobile browsing, which increases government transparency by making information more accessible to a greater number of users. Not only did the project dramatically improve user experience, it also reduced costs and improved efficiency by integrating disparate systems and automating processes through workflows and orchestration.