How Telangana’s MeeSeva migration to open source could make governments rethink software costs
The State’s move from Oracle to open-source PostgreSQL, completed in April 2026, shows both the potential savings and the technical and administrative hurdles involved in moving mission-critical government systems away from proprietary software
In April 2026, the Telangana state government migrated its MeeSeva platform from Oracle to the open-source PostgreSQL database, marking a shift away from proprietary software. This migration, completed by Hari P Kiran and his team, aimed to reduce recurring software costs that amounted to around ₹10 crore annually. The transition, which covered over 85 microservices and 1,939 tables, was documented by French database expert Gilles Darold and his Ora2Pg migration tool.
The project took place over multiple government committees and required extensive validation of the new PostgreSQL environment to ensure data integrity and performance. Despite the challenges, the migration achieved zero incidents for two quarters post-completion, with the PostgreSQL database demonstrating robustness and reliability.
While open-source software does not eliminate all costs, the shift to PostgreSQL allowed Telangana to eliminate Oracle's licensing and maintenance expenses, emphasizing the potential for governments to manage software expenditures more efficiently.
Written by urgent.news from The Hindu's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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