I think the government should be doing all of the above.
I don’t fully agree with you because each of the above provides a different amount of value. I’m leaning towards understanding/prioritizing the above list by the amount of value they provide given the cost.
The problem with government units in general is lack of ownership and capacity.
I mostly agree with you and this was one of the reasons behind the “FOSS projects by the Indian Government - #3 by Raghuram_Bindignavle” topic. I wanted to catalog successful and failed FOSS efforts by the Indian Government and try to understand why they succeeded/failed. There are also instances where the projects have been active for 10+ years but they’re not exactly popular/widely-used.
Regarding “lack of ownership”, I’m wondering if the projects should be focused on community participation to ensure that the ownership passes on to the community if (and when) the Indian Government stops funding the project.