Information or knowledge and its contribution to material advancements is the key element that distinguishes the highly developed societies of the world today from those that are still developing. In today's context, it is unquestionably and increasingly being recognized that information is a vital resource. In fact, information has become a critical process and a part of modern decision-making as well as socio-economic development.

Therefore, countries all over the world have realized the need and importance of information supply systems and now they have been quite active in creating information centers and systems at national, regional and local level and various sections of national economy. In this context the author has made an attempt to study (i) whether the Information Systems and Networks in India are fulfilling the defined objectives. (ii) to survey the existing Information Systems and Networks in India with regard to the background information and information services. (iii) to prepare a state art of the existing Information Systems and Networks in India. (iv) to study the National Information Systems and Networks in India through their homepages to find out the current status of their functioning and ranking the homepages.

The study was undertaken for award of Ph.D. Degree of the Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj, Nagpur University, Nagpur in Department of Library and Information Science under the guidance of Prof. D.Rajyalakshmi. It took nearly five years to complete the research on the topic: "Study of Information Systems and Networks in India: with special reference to Maharashtra". A number of changes were made in the thesis after its approval for bringing in the form of the book. In this book only Information Systems and Networks in India as a whole is covered and rest of the portion of Information Centers pertaining to Maharashtra would be brought out as a separate book.