Digital India Programme

The Digital India programme is a flagship programme of the Government of India, launched in 2015, with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

• Digital infrastructure will focus on providing high speed secure Internet. Governance and services on demand will stress on integrating services across departments and jurisdictions and making services available in real time for both online and mobile platform.
• Digital empowerment of citizens will put emphasis on universal digital literacy and availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages.

Key Areas

• Vision of Digital India is centred on 3 key areas:-
• Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen
• Governance & Services on Demand
• Digital Empowerment of Citizens

Nine Pillars of Digital India

First Pillar: Broadband Highways

• This covers three sub components, namely Broadband for All Rural, Broadband for All Urban and National Information Infrastructure.
• Under Broadband for All Urban, Virtual Network Operators would be leveraged for service delivery and communication infrastructure in urban areas
• Under Broadband for All Rural 2,50,000 village Panchayats would be covered under the BharatNet.
• National Information Infrastructure would integrate the networks like SWAN, NKN and NOFN along with cloud enabled National and State Data Centres.

Second Pillar: Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity

• The initiative is to focus on network penetration and fill the gaps in connectivity in the country.
• Altogether 42,300 uncovered villages will be covered for providing universal mobile connectivity in the country.

Third Pillar: Public Internet Access Programme

• The two sub components of Public Internet Access Programme are Common Service Centres and Post Offices as multi-service centres.
• Common Service Centres (CSCs) would be strengthened to make a provision of one CSC in each Gram Panchayat. CSCs would be made viable, multi-functional end-points for delivery of government and business services. DeitY would be the nodal department to implement the scheme.

Fourth Pillar: e-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology

• The guiding principles for reforming government through technology are:
• Form simplification and field reduction – Forms should be made simple and user friendly and only minimum and necessary information should be collected.
• Online applications, tracking of their status and interface between departments should be provided.
• Use of online repositories e.g. school certificates, voter ID cards, etc. should be mandated so that citizens are not required to submit these documents in physical form.
• Integration of services and platforms, e.g. UIDAI, Payment Gateway, Mobile Platform, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) etc. should be mandated to facilitate integrated and interoperable service delivery to citizens and businesses.
• Public Grievance Redressal - IT should be used to automate, respond and analyze data to identify and resolve persistent problems. These would be largely process improvements.

Fifth Pillar: e-Kranti - Electronic Delivery of Services

• There are 31 Mission Mode Projects under different stages of e-governance project lifecycle. Further, 10 new projects have been added to e-Kranti by the Apex Committee on National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) headed by the Cabinet Secretary in its meeting held on 18^th March 2014.
• Technology for Education – e-Education: All Schools will be connected with broadband. Free wifi will be provided in all secondary and higher secondary schools (coverage would be around 250,000 schools). A programme on digital literacy would be taken up at the national level. MOOCs –Massive Online Open Courses shall be developed and leveraged for e-Education.
• Technology for Health – e-Healthcare: E-Healthcare would cover online medical consultation, online medical records, online medicine supply, pan-India exchange for patient information.
• Technology for Farmers: This would facilitate farmers to get real time price information, online ordering of inputs and online cash, loan and relief payment with mobile banking.
• Technology for Security: Mobile based emergency services and disaster related services would be provided to citizens on real time basis so as to take precautionary measures well in time and minimize loss of lives and properties.
• Technology for Financial Inclusion: Financial Inclusion shall be strengthened using Mobile Banking, Micro-ATM program and CSCs/ Post Offices.
• Technology for Justice: Interoperable Criminal Justice System shall be strengthened by leveraging e-Courts, e-Police, e-Jails and e-Prosecution.
• Technology for Planning: National GIS Mission Mode Project would be implemented to facilitate GIS based decision making for project planning, conceptualization, design and development.
• Technology for Cyber Security: National Cyber Security Co-ordination Center would be set up to ensure safe and secure cyber-space within the country.

Sixth Pillar: Information for All

• Open Data platform and online hosting of information & documents would facilitate open and easy access to information for citizens.
• Government shall pro-actively engage through social media and web based platforms to inform citizens. MyGov.in has already been launched as a medium to exchange ideas/ suggestions with Government. It will facilitate 2-way communication between citizens and government.
• Online messaging to citizens on special occasions/programs would be facilitated through emails and SMSes.

Seventh Pillar: Electronics Manufacturing

• Target NET ZERO Imports is a striking demonstration of intent. This ambitious goal requires coordinated action on many fronts:
• Taxation, incentives
• Economies of scale, eliminate cost disadvantages
• Focus areas – Big Ticket Items FABS, Fab-less design, Set top boxes, VSATs, Mobiles, Consumer & Medical Electronics, Smart Energy meters, Smart cards, micro-ATMs
• Incubators, clusters
• Skill development
• Government procurement
• Existing structures are inadequate to handle this goal and need strengthening.

Eighth Pillar: IT for Jobs

• 1 Cr students from smaller towns & villages will be trained for IT sector jobs over 5 years. DeitY would be the nodal department for this scheme.
• BPOs would be set up in every north-eastern state to facilitate ICT enabled growth in these states. DeitY would be the nodal department for this scheme.
• 3 lakh service delivery agents would be trained as part of skill development to run viable businesses delivering IT services. DeitY would be the nodal department for this scheme.
• 5 lakh rural workforce would be trained by the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to cater to their own needs. Department of Telecom (DoT) would be the nodal department for this scheme.

Ninth Pillar: Early Harvest Programmes

• IT Platform for Messages: A Mass Messaging Application has been developed by DeitY that will cover elected representatives and all Government employees. 1.36 Cr mobiles and 22 Lakh emails are part of the database.
• Biometric attendance: It will cover all Central Govt. Offices in Delhi and is already operational in DeitY and has been initiated in the Department of Urban Development. On-boarding has also started in other departments.
• Wi-Fi in All Universities: All universities on the National Knowledge Network (NKN) shall be covered under this scheme. Ministry of HRD is the nodal ministry for implementing this scheme.
• Public Wi-fi hotspots: Cities with population of over 1 million and tourist centres would be provided with public wi-fi hotspots to promote digital cities.
• School Books to be eBooks: All books shall be converted into eBooks. Min. of HRD/ DeitY would be the nodal agencies for this scheme.
• National Portal for Lost & Found children: This would facilitate real time information gathering and sharing on the lost and found children and would go a long way to check crime and improve timely response.

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.

Possibilities and Prospects

• 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.
• Encourage private sector participation for last mile infrastructure creation and ensure commercial viability for private internet service providers in rural areas through viability gap funding.
• 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.