All about DIGITAL INDIA

Why DIGITAL INDIA ??

In an order to create participative, transparent and responsive government, the much ambitious 'Digital India' programme was launched.

The Digital India programme aims at transforming the country into a digitally empowered knowledge economy.

It is an umbrella programme that covers multiple Government Ministries and Departments, coordinated by the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY).

NINE PILLARS OF DIGITAL INDIA :-

1. Broadband Highways

 • This covers three sub components, namely Broadband for All Rural, Broadband for All Urban and National Information Infrastructure.

o Under Broadband for All Rural, 250000 village Panchayats would be covered by December’ 2016.

o Under Broadband for All Urban, Virtual Network Operators would be leveraged for service delivery and communication infrastructure in new urban development and buildings would be mandated.

o National Information Infrastructure would integrate the networks like SWAN, NKN and NOFN along with cloud enabled National and State Data Centres.

2. Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity 

3. Public Internet Access Programme 

• The two sub components of Public Internet Access Programme are Common Service Centres and Post Offices as multi-service centres.

o Common Service Centres would be strengthened and its number would be increased from approximately 135,000 operational at present to 250,000 i.e. one CSC in each Gram Panchayat. CSCs would be made viable, multi-functional end-points for delivery of government and business services.

o A total of 150,000 Post Offices are proposed to be converted into multi service centres.

4. e-Governance – Reforming Government through Technology 

• The guiding principles for reforming government through technology are

- Form simplification and field reduction; Online applications and tracking of their status ; Mandatory use of online repositories e.g. school certificates, voter ID cards, etc.

• Electronic Databases – all databases and information should be electronic and not manual.

• Workflow Automation Inside Government – The workflow inside government agencies should be automated to enable efficient government processes and to allow visibility of these processes to the citizens.

• 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.

5. e-Kranti (NeGP 2.0) – Electronic delivery of services 

• There are 31 Mission Mode Projects under different stages of e-governance project lifecycle. Further, 10 new MMPs have been added to e-Kranti by the Apex Committee on NeGP.

• Technology for Education – e-Education: Free wifi will be provided in all secondary and higher secondary schools (totalling around 250,000 schools).

A programme on digital literacy would be taken up at the national level.

MOOCs –Massive Online Open Courses shall be leveraged for eEducation.

 • 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.

• 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 eCourts, 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.

6. Information for All 

• Government to pro-actively engage via social media and web based platforms to inform citizens.

o 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.

7. Electronics Manufacturing – Target NET ZERO Imports 

8. IT for Jobs 

• 1 Crore students from smaller towns & villages will be trained for IT sector jobs over 5 years.

• BPOs would be set up in every north-eastern state to facilitate ICT enabled growth in these states.

• 3 lakh service delivery agents would be skill trained to run viable businesses delivering IT services.

9. 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.

• Biometric attendance: It will cover all Central Government. Offices in Delhi.

• Wi-Fi in All Universities

• Public Wi-fi hotspots: Cities with population of over 1 million and tourist centres would be provided with wi-fi hotspots to promote digital cities. The scheme would be implemented by DoT and MoUD.

• 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. Recently the Khoya Paya Portal was launched.

Digital Locker: 

• Digital locker is a dedicated personal storage space for e-documents as well as Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of e-documents issued by government departments.

The system will have an e-sign facility, which can be used to sign stored documents.

Each locker is linked to the resident's Aadhar number.

• The move is aimed at minimising the use of physical documents and provide authenticity to edocuments, thereby, giving secure access to documents issued by government.

It will also reduce administrative overhead of government departments and agencies and make it easy for the residents to receive services.

National Scholarship Portal: 

The National Scholarships Portal is a one-stop solution for end-to-end scholarship process.

From submission of student application, verification, sanction to disbursal to end beneficiary for all the scholarships provided by the government, this is an important tool of the Digital India initiative.

CHALLENGES TO THE DIGITAL INDIA PROGRAMME :--

 1. Slow implementation of projects - The National Optical Fibre Network project to connect more than 2 lakh gram panchayats was sluggish from the start, and lagged five years behind schedule by 2013. Today, only 9 % of those who live in rural areas have access to the internet, compared to 64 % of those who live in cities.

2. Lack of a legal framework and concerns over privacy and data protection -India lacks a privacy law, without which initiatives like Digital Locker and e-Hospital are open to flagrant misuse by the state.

3. The entire programme is designed as a top-down model. There is no idea of how it would be implemented on the ground to be successful. For example, Broadband highways, now called BharatNet, is supposed to connect up to gram panchayat, but laying fiber optic cables is the least of the challenges here. The biggest challenge is ensuring that each panchayat point of broadband is fired up, functional, used and distributed. It has been found that more than 67% of the NOFN points are non-functional, even at the pilot stage.