Digital India
Digital India is a flagship programme of Government of India, to deliver Govt. Services at faster rate to every Indian using high speed internet. The focus is on making technology central to enabling change. The programme contains tasks that target to make sure that govt. services are available to people digitally and people get advantage of the newest information and communication technological innovation. The Digital India initiative seeks to lay emphasis on e-governance and transform India into a digitally empowered society. It is to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically. Digital India also aims to transform ease of doing business in the country.
It is an Umbrella Programme and it covers many departments. It weaves together a large number of ideas and thoughts into a single, comprehensive vision so that each of them is seen as part of a larger goal. Each individual element stands on its own but is also part of the larger picture. It is coordinated by Deity (Department of Electronics and Information Technology), implemented by the entire government. The weaving together makes the Mission transformative in totality.
The programme pulls together many existing schemes. These schemes were restructured and re- focused. They were implemented in a synchronized manner. Many elements are only process improvements with minimal cost. The common branding of programmes as Digital India highlights their transformative impact.
Vision of Digital India: The vision of Digital India is centered on three key areas:
1. Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen: The initiative is aimed at providing connectivity through fixed-line broadband, mobile connectivity or Wi-Fi hotspots. Every citizen would be provided with a unique identity with lifelong validity that can be tied up with mobile number and bank account to enable digital banking. Access to Common Service Centre (CSC) would be improved and shareable cloud space on public cloud servers would be provided. Every citizen should be provided safe and secure cyber-space.
2. Governance and services on demand: The initiative plans to create seamless integration across multiple government departments and jurisdictions, and make services available on online and mobile platforms. Financial transactions would be made cashless and electronic, and entitlements would be available on the cloud. The ease of doing business in India would be improved. Leveraging GIS for decision support systems & development.
3. Digital Empowerment of Citizens: The initiative would provide universal digital literacy to empower citizens to use digital platform/ devices. Universal access to digital resources would be provided, wherein all documents would be available in digital form on the cloud. Government services would be provided in local languages and a platform would be made available to citizens for participative governance. Provision of portability of all entitlements through cloud.
Pillars of Digital India
The vision of Digital India would be supported by 9 key pillars that cover projects such as National Optical Fibre Network, National Knowledge Network, Smart Cities, etc
1. Broadband Highways
• To provide high-speed broadband coverage highways connecting about 250,000 villages, various government departments, universities, etc.
• To provide an integrated information infrastructure with integration of State Wide Area Network (SWAN), National Knowledge Network (NKN) and National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN).
2. Universal Access to Phones
• To provide mobile connectivity to about 42,300 villages.
3. Public Internet Access Programme
• To make 250,000 CSCs (Community Service Centres) operational at Gram Panchayat level for delivery of government services.
• To convert 150,000 post offices into multi-service centres.
4. E-Governance - Reforming government through Technology
• Government Business Process Re-engineering using IT to improve govt. processes
(i) Form Simplification, reduction.
(ii) Online applications and tracking, Interface between departments.
(iii) Use of online repositories e.g. school certificates, voter ID cards, etc.
(iv) Integration of services and platforms - UIDAI, Payment Gateway, Mobile Platform, EDI
- Electronic Databases - all databases and information to be electronic, not manual.
• Workflow automation inside government.
• Public Grievance Redressal - using IT to automate, respond, analyse data to identify and resolve persistent problems - largely process improvements.
5. eKranti - Electronic delivery of services
- Technology for Education - e-Education
(i) All Schools connected with broadband
(ii) Free wifi in all schools (250,000)
(iii) Digital Literacy program
(iv) MOOCs - develop pilot Massive Online Open Courses. Technology for Health - e-Healthcare
(i) Online medical consultation
(ii) Online medical records
(iii) Online medicine supply
(iv) Pan-India exchange for patient information.
- Technology for Planning
(i) GIS based decision making
(ii) National GIS Mission Mode Project
- Technology for Farmers
(i) Real time price information
(ii) Online ordering of inputs
(iii) Online cash, loan, relief payment with mobile banking
- Technology for Security
(i) Mobile Emergency Services
- Technology for Financial Inclusion
(i) Mobile Banking
(ii) Micro-ATM program
(iii) CSCs/ Post Offices
- Technology for Justice
(i) e-Courts, e-Police, e-Jails, e-Prosecution
- Technology for Security
(i) National Cyber Security Co-ordination Center
6. Information for All
- To provide open access to government information and documents online.
- To provide two-way communication between citizens and the government through online platforms and social media (MyGov.in).
- School Books to be eBooks
- SMS based weather information, disaster alerts
Digital India Initiatives
5. National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN): Under this initiative, a high-speed digital highway will connect all 250,000 gram panchayats of the country. This is the world's largest rural broadband project using optical fibre. This plan has seen very slow progress.
6. Wi-Fi Hotspots: Following on the footsteps of the NOFN, this programme aims to develop high speed BSNL Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the country to improve digital connectivity across India. The situation of WI-FI hotspots is not encouraging and lot needs to be done.
7. E-Hospital: This is another initiative by the government under the Digital India program and is being managed by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology. It features an online registration system which links various hospitals across the country for registrations and appointments based on Aadhar. Under this initiative, people can use services like online registration, payment of fees and appointment, online diagnostic reports, checking on the availability of blood online, etc. The website ors.gov.in is fully functional where 522 hospitals are on board and has received over 6500000 registrations so far(15 Oct, 2022). The website, updated regularly, also features a dashboard which allows real-time tracking of data and registrations.
8. Skill India Initiative: Launched in July 2015, the Skill India initiative aims to impart training in different areas to 400 million people in India by the year 2022. This will be essential to the success of the Digital India programme, one of the major challenges of which is a lack of skilled workforce. Equipping training centres with high speed Wi-Fi and video facilities will enable greater outreach and quicker scalability of the project. Development of mobile applications for training will also be immensely useful.
Challenges in Digital India
An initiative of this scale has never been conceived before and, apart from little availability of skilled manpower, execution has been a challenge. Hence, the vision cannot be realized without tackling such looming challenges.
(i) NOFN Infrastructure Setup: Very slow progress
(ii) Adoption of Internet: penetration is very low as compared to other countries
(iii) Data Speed: very slow as compared to other countries
(iv) Security: With cybercrime on the rise, the idea of putting information of about a billion citizens online seems like a risky move. Hence highest levels of security measures and protocols would need to be taken to ensure a safe environment for the citizens.
(v) Coordination: Lack of coordination between various government departments like Deity, DoT, Law, Finance, etc.
(vi) Private Sector Participation: In order to meet the expected timelines, participation of private sector players becomes quite crucial. Whereas, private sector players have shown limited involvement, this needs to be boosted quite rapidly.
(vii) Skilled manpower - Skilled manpower is, perhaps, the biggest challenge of all. Skilled manpower is essential for the development and effective adoption of new technologies. Creating a system to train and provide gainful employment to so many people is an immense challenge.
(viii) Budgetary constraints
(ix) Digital divide.
E-Governance
E-governance is the application of electronic and IT means in the communication between government and citizens and government and businesses, as well as in internal government operations, to simplify and improve its processes. E-governance has been defined as an application of I.T. to the processes of government functioning to bring out responsible, responsive, efficient and transparent governance. E-governance is the effective use of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) to improve the system of governance that is in place, and thus provide better services to the Citizens. E-governance makes the various services and schemes of the government readily available to the citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner. It helps in implementing and delivering various government initiatives to the remotest of the parts of the country. E-governance provides better interface between the general public and the government; reduces digital divide and rural-urban divide; ensures timely grievance redressal ; provides SMART(Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive & Transparent) governance; speeds up process of employment, health care, education, and so on.
E-Governance has been introduced in India via usage of technology and implementing the usage of computers within the various departments of Government of India. This was done to enhance the concept of "Minimum Government, Maximum Governance". The government introduced the National E-Governance Plan (NeGP) in 2006 to overview the e-governance initiatives in India with the services spread across different states and Union Territories (UTS) with a collective vision of good governance. The implementation of technology-based solutions, creating infrastructure, providing access to the internet and using digitization to various existing data records, are all included under the plan of NeGP. The major objective communicated through the NeGP's Vision Statement is to reduce the gap between the public services and their access to the citizens. The vision statement communicates that the initiative aims to make government services to the citizens through reliable service delivery outlets. And to ensure transparency and efficiency of such services, citizens can avail those services at a reliable
cost.
e-Governance Projects and Initiatives
Under the National E-Governance Plan (NeGP), mission mode projects (MMPs) have been introduced that focuses on one aspect of electronic governance, such as banking, land records or commercial taxes and so on. Mission mode projects are individual projects with clearly defined objectives, scopes and implementation timelines and milestones and have measurable outcomes and service levels. Mission mode projects (MMPs) are classified as the state, central or integrated projects specifying their individual needs. The integrated Mission Mode Projects include E-Procurement, E-Courts, E-Biz and common services centres.
|
Central MMPs |
|
|
State MMPs |
|
|
Integrated MMps |
Service Deliver Gateway
|
Digital India and e-Governance Infrastructure
(i) Aadhaar-Digital Biometric Identity Infrastructure: The Aadhaar System is built on a sound strategy and a strong technology backbone and has evolved into a vital digital identity infrastructure. Aadhaar, being a unique digital ID-provides a powerful platform for authenticating a resident anytime and anywhere which is in line with the vision of the UIDAI. The purpose of Authentication is to enable residents to prove their identity and for service providers to confirm that the residents are 'who they say they are' in order to supply services and give access to benefits.
(ii) Digital Locker: Digi Locker is a key initiative under Digital India, the Indian Government's flagship program aimed at transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Digi Locker ties into Digital India's visions areas of providing citizens a shareable private space on a public cloud and making all documents/ certificates available on this cloud.
(iii) Open Data: In pursuance of the NDSAP- Policy notified by Government of India in March 2012, Meaty through NIC has set up the Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India - https:// data.gov.in/ to provide open access by proactive release of the data available with various ministries/ departments/organizations of Government of India.
(iv) Government e-marketplace: Government created one stop Government e-Marketplace (GeM) to facilitate on line Departments/Organizations / PSUs. GeM will enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement of common use Goods & Services required by various Government procurement. It provides the tools of e-bidding and reverse e-auction as well as demand aggregation to facilitate the government users to achieve the best value for the money.
(v) GI Cloud (MeghRaj): In order to utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing, Government of India embarked upon an ambitious initiative- "GI Cloud" which has been coined as 'Meghraj'. The focus of this initiative is to accelerate delivery of e-services in the country while optimizing
ICT spending of the Government. Meity has embarked upon several initiatives in order to proliferate the Cloud adoption across the various departments and agencies and streamline the processes involved.
(vi) Common Service Centres (CSCs): The primary objective of the CSC is to provide Government-to-Citizen (G2C) e-Services within the reach of the citizen, by creating the physical service delivery ICT infrastructure. It helps in making a transparent service delivery mechanism and reducing citizens' effort in visiting government offices.
(vii) State Wide Area Network (SWAN): The Scheme for establishing State Wide Area Network (SWAN) across the country was approved to connect all State/UT Headquarters up to the Block level via District/sub-Divisional Headquarters, in a vertical hierarchical structure. Each of the State/UT could enhance the bandwidth up to 34-100 Mbps between SHQ and DHQs and upto 8-10 Mbps between DHQS and BHQs depending upon the utilization. SWAN is envisaged as the converged backbone network for data, voice and video communications throughout a State/UT.
(viii) e-Taal: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) along with National Informatics Centre (NIC), the nodal information technology arm of Government of India, have developed Electronic Transaction Aggregation & Analysis Layer (eTaal) portal (URL: http:// etaal.gov.in). It provides an aggregated view of eTransactions performed through e-Governance applications implemented including, but not limited to, the national-level mission mode projects (MMPs) under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). eTaal automatically pulls the e-transaction count, but not the personal details, from the applications using web service technology. The dashboard also facilitates quick analysis of data of various applications in tabular as well as graphical form enabling users to drill down to the lowest level of detail without compromising security and integrity of the servers from where data has been captured.
(ix) PRAGATI Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation: PRAGATI is a unique integrated and interactive platform through which Hon'ble Prime Minister oversees the implementation of various government schemes, grievances, state and central related projects & programmes by directly interacting with all stake holders through Videoconferencing on a single platform.
PRAGATI is aimed for a culture of Pro-Active Governance through online video conferencing & meetings and Timely Implementation of projects and schemes. It is also a robust system for bringing e-transparency and e-accountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders.
(x) Jeevan Pramaan: Jeevan Pramaan is a biometric enabled digital service for pensioners. Pensioners of Central Government, State Government or any other Government organization can take benefit of this facility. Jeevan Pramaan uses the Aadhaar platform for biometric authentication of the pensioner.
(x) Bharat Broadband Network (BBNL): Bharat Broadband Network Limited is a special purpose vehicle set-up under Companies Act by the Government of India with an authorized capital of Rs. 1000 cr. It has been mandated to create the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) in India. A total of around 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats spread over 6,600 Blocks and 641 Districts are to be covered by laying incremental fiber.
(xii) Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT): Discussed in Sec 2.1.4.
(xiii) e-Basta: In line with the Government's Digital India initiative, this project has created a framework to make school books accessible in digital form as e-books to be read and used on tablets and laptops. The main idea is to bring various publishers (free as well as commercial) and schools
together on one platform. In addition to the portal, a back-end framework to facilitate the organization and easy management of such resources has been developed, along with the web-based applications that can be installed on tablets for navigating the framework.
Digital India and e-Governance Services
1. Agrimarket App: The mobile application has been developed with an aim to keep farmers abreast with the crop prices and discourage them to carry-out distress sale. Farmers can get information related to prices of crops in markets within 50 km of their own device location using the AgriMarket Mobile App. This app automatically captures the location of the farmers using mobile GPS and fetches the market prices of crops which fall within the range of 50 km.
2. BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money): Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) is makes payment transactions simple, easy and quick using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). an app that It enables direct bank to bank payments instantly and collect money using a Mobile number or Payment address.
3. Crop Insurance Mobile App: Crop insurance mobile app can be used to calculate the insurance premium for notified crops based on area, coverage amount and loan amount in case of loanee farmer. It can also be used to get details of normal sum insured, extended sum insured, premium details and subsidy information of any notified crop in any notified area.
4. E-Granthalaya: e-Granthalaya is an Integrated Library Management Software developed by National Informatics Centre, (NIC), Department of Electronics & Information Technology. The application is useful for automation of in-house activities of libraries and to provide various online member services.
5. E-office: The e-Office product aims to support governance by ushering in more effective and transparent inter and intra-government processes. The vision of e-Office is to achieve a simplified, responsive, effective and transparent working of all government offices.
6. E-Pathshala: Developed by NCERT, e-Pathshala showcases and disseminates all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals and a variety of other print and non-print materials through website and mobile app.
7. National Scholarship Portal (NSP): NSP is a one-stop solution for end-to-end scholarship process right from the submission of student application, verification, sanction and disbursal to end beneficiary for all the scholarships provided by the Government of India. This initiative aims at providing a Simplified, Mission-oriented, Accountable, Responsive & Transparent 'SMART' System for faster & effective disposal of Scholarships applications and delivery of funds directly into beneficiaries account without any leakages.
8. Parivahan Portal: The portal was launched to improve the quality of service delivery to the citizen and the quality of work environment of the RTOs. Its mission has been to automate all Vehicle Registration and Driving License related activities in transport authorities of country with introduction of smart card technology to handle issues like inter-state transport vehicle movement and to create state and national level registers of vehicles/DL information.
9. Passport Seva Project (PSP): Passport Seva enables simple, efficient and transparent processes for delivery of passport and related services. Apart from creating a countrywide networked environment for Government staff, it integrates with the State Police for physical verification of applicant's credentials and with India Post for delivery of passports.
- Swayam: Swayam is an indigenous developed IT platform (MOOC) that facilitates hosting of all the courses, taught in classrooms from 9th class till post-graduation to be accessed by anyone, anywhere at anytime.
- Startup India Portal and Mobile App: Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and Startups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities. The Government through this initiative aims to empower Startups to grow through innovation and design.
Digital India and e-Governance Empowerment
1. Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS): AEPS is a bank led model which allows online interoperable financial inclusion transaction at PoS (Micro ATM) through the Business correspondent of any bank using the Aadhaar authentication. It is a payment service empowering a bank customer to use Aadhaar as his/her identity to access his/ her respective Aadhaar enabled bank account and perform basic banking transactions like balance enquiry, cash deposit, cash withdrawal, remittances through a Business Correspondent.
2. Digi Dhan Adhyayan: The initiative plans to enable citizens and merchants to undertake real time digital transactions through the DIGIDHAN Bazaar. Through organizing Digi Dhan Melas across the country, it aims to handhold users in downloading, installing and using various digital payment systems for carrying out digital transactions.
3. MyGov MyGov brings the government closer to the common man by the use of online platform creating an interface for healthy exchange of ideas and views involving the common citizen and experts with the ultimate goal to contribute to the social and economic transformation of India.
4. Pahal (DBTL): The PAHAL (DBTL) aims to reduce diversion and eliminate duplicate or bogus LPG connections. The scheme was earlier launched in 2013 and was modified in 2015. Under the PaHaL scheme, LPG cylinders are sold at market rates and entitled consumers get the subsidy directly into their bank accounts. This is done either through an Aadhaar linkage or a bank account linkage.
5. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY): PMKVY is the flagship scheme of Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE). The objective of this Skill Certification Scheme is to enable a large number of Indian youth to take up industry-relevant skill training that will help them in securing a better livelihood. Individuals with prior learning experience or skills will also be assessed and certified under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).
6 Smart Cities: The Government of India launched the Smart Cities Mission in June 2015. Its objective is to promote sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of 'Smart' Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model which will act like a lighthouse to other aspiring cities.
.jpg)
