Digital India

Digital India is a flagship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy by ensuring digital access, digital inclusion, digital empowerment and bridging the digital divide. The ministry of digital India is Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology. The Digital India programme is centered on three key vision areas:

  • Digital Infrastructure as a Core Utility to every citizen
  • Governance and Services on Demand
  • Digital Empowerment of Citizens

Outcomes of Digital India

  • Through Aadhar, India has given digital identity to its citizens with 99% coverage of adult population.
  • India’s unique payment systems like BHIM-UPI and BHIM- AADHAR has led to growth of digital payments in India
  • UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New Age Governance) platform has been created to provide easily accessible, high quality digital delivery of services to people.
  • Linking of Jan Dhan Accounts with mobile connection and Aadhar has led to shift towards Direct Benefit Transfer.
  • National Knowledge Network (NKN) to interconnect institutes of higher learning with high speed data connection.
  • National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) aims to connect all Gram Panchayats in the country through optical fibre cable (OFC) by bridging the connectivity gap between Gram Panchayat and Blocks for providing broadband.
  • eSign, a digital signature application using which Aadhar card holders will be able to authenticate documents online.
  • Public Wi-Fi Hotspots will be provided in clusters to promote internet connectivity.

Challenges

  • High level of digital illiteracy and urban-rural divide prevalent in India
  • Non availability of digital services in local languages is a great barrier in digital literacy.
  • Cyber security issues, breach of privacy and fear of cybercrime has had a deterrent effect in adoption of digital technologies.
  • Main challenge under National Optical Fibre Network has been to ensure that each panchayat point of broadband is fixed up and remains functional. It has been found that 67% of NOFN points are non-functional even at the pilot stage.
  • India’s digital infrastructure is comprehensively inadequate to tackle growing increase in digital transactions. According to Deloitte report, India needs over 80 lakh hotspots as against the availability of about 31000 hotspots at present to reach global level.

Way Forward

  • Promote skill development and skill training of cyber security professionals. According to NASSCOM, India needs 1 million trained cyber security professionals by 2025.
  • Introduce cyber security course at graduate level and encourage international certification bodies to introduce various skill based cyber security courses.
  • A three tier service partnership should exist between the government, telecom and cyber security experts to create a cyber-security net which insulates Indian cyber systems from malware and cyber-attacks.
  • Encourage private sector participation for last mile infrastructure creation.
  • Tackle the low internet speed currently in India.
  • Effective deployment of funds to meet the cost of infrastructure creation in rural areas and exploring different PPP models
  • Ensure commercial viability for private internet service providers in rural areas through viability gap funding.

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