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| Our Hon'ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi |
Digital India is an ambitious programme of Government of India
projected at Rs 1,13,000 crores. This will be for preparing the India for the
knowledge based transformation and delivering good governance to citizens by
synchronized and co-ordinated engagement with both Central Government and State
Government.
This programme has been envisaged by Department of Electronics
and Information Technology (DeitY) and will impact ministry of communications
& IT, ministry of rural development, ministry of human resource
development, ministry of health and others. This programme will also benefit
all states and union territories. The existing/ ongoing e-Governance
initiatives would be revamped to align them with the principles of Digital
India. The vision of Digital India is to transform the country into a digitally
empowered society and knowledge economy. It would ensure that government
services are available to citizens electronically. It would also bring in
public accountability through mandated delivery of government’s services
electronically.
The Digital India vision provides the intensified impetus for
further momentum and progress for e-Governance and would promote inclusive
growth that covers electronic services, products, devices, manufacturing and
job opportunities.
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 pay emphasis on universal
digital literacy and availability of digital resources/services in Indian
languages.
The programme will be implemented in phases from 2014 till 2018.
The source of funding for most of the e-Governance projects at present is
through budgetary provisions of respective ministries/departments in the
central or state governments. Requirements of funds for individual project(s)
for Digital India will be worked out by respective nodal ministries/departments
but according to government estimate it will cost Rs 113,000 crore. To
implement this the government is planning to strengthen National Informatics
Center (NIC) by restructuring it to support all central government departments
and state governments. Positions of chief information officers (CIO) would be
created in at least 10 key ministries so that e-Governance projects could be
designed, developed and implemented faster.
Apart from this, the DeitY would create four senior positions
within the department for managing the programme say additional secretary,
Digital India; joint secretary, infrastructure development; joint secretary,
capacity building and digital enablement; and joint secretary, IT applications
in uncovered areas & process re-engineering. Digital India has the VISION:
Infrastructure as a
utility to every citizen:
High speed internet shall be made available in all gram panchayats; Cradle to
grave digital identity; Mobile and Bank account would enable participation in
digital and financial space at individual level; Easy access to common service
centre within their locality; Shareable private space on a public cloud; and
Safe and secure cyber space in the country.
Infrastructure as a
utility to every citizen:
High speed internet shall be made available in all gram panchayats; Cradle to
grave digital identity; Mobile and Bank account would enable participation in
digital and financial space at individual level; Easy access to common service
centre within their locality; Shareable private space on a public cloud; and
Safe and secure cyber space in the country.
Governance and Services
on Demand:
Single window access to all persons by seamlessly integrating departments or
jurisdictions; availability of government services in online and mobile
platforms; All citizen entitlements to be available on the Cloud to ensure easy
access; Government services to be digitally transformed for improving ease of
doing business; Making financial transactions above a threshold, electronic and
cashless; and Leveraging GIS for decision support systems and development.
Digital empowerment of
citizens:
Universal digital literacy; All digital resources universally accessible; All
government documents/certificates to be available on the Cloud; Availability of
digital resources/services in Indian languages; Collaborative digital platforms
for participative governance; Portability of all entitlements for individuals
through the cloud.
BJP
Vision for Digital India:
BJP Election Manifesto 2014 aimed to nurture a Digital India
thereby making every household and every individual digitally empowered..
The party aims to make every household digitally literate with a
goal to make India the Global Knowledge hub, with IT being a major driver and
engine of growth.
The manifesto has a strong focus on e-Governance as BJP believes
IT is a great enabler for empowerment, equity and efficiency.The party is
focusing on: broadbanding villages; participative governance; digital learning;
tele-medicine and mobile healthcare; open source and open standard; E-Bhasha;
and others.
Digital India is an initiative of Government of India to integrate the government departments
and the people of India. It aims at ensuring the government services
are made available to citizens electronically by reducing paperwork. The
initiative also includes plan to connect rural areas with high-speed internet networks. Digital India has three core
components. These include:
· The
creation of digital infrastructure
· Delivering
services digitally
· Digital
literacy.
The project is slated for completion by 2019.
A two-way platform will be created where both the service providers and the
consumers stand to benefit. The scheme will be monitored and controlled by the Digital
India Advisory group which will be chaired by the Ministry of Communications and IT. It will be an inter-ministerial initiative
where all ministries and departments shall offer their own services to the
public Healthcare, Education, Judicial services etc. The Public-private-partnership model shall be adopted selectively. In addition, there are
plans to restructure the National
Informatics Centre. This project is one
among the top priority projects of the Modi Administration.
The initiative is
commendable and deserves full support of all stakeholders. However, the
initiative also lacks many crucial components including lack of legal
framework, absence of privacy and data protection laws, civil
liberties abuse possibilities, lack of parliamentary oversight for
e-surveillance in India, lack of intelligence related reforms in
India,insecure Indian cyberspace, etc. These issues have to be managed
first before introducing DI initiative in India. Digital India project is worth
exploring and implementation despite its shortcomings that can be rectified
before its implementation.
Challenges Before Digital India
The Government of India entity Bharat Broadband Network Limited which executes the National Optical Fibre Networkproject will be the custodian of Digital
India (DI) project. BBNL had ordered United Telecoms Limited to connect 250,000 villages through GPON
to ensure FTTH based broadband. This will provide the first basic setup to
achieve towards DI and is expected to be completed by 2017.
The Digital India initiative
is a promising initiative of the Indian Government. Many companies have shown
their interest in this project. It is also believed that E-commerce would facilitate the DI project. However, it is not
free from challenges and legal hurdles. Some believe that DI cannot be
successful till mandatorybcb e-governance services in India are introduced. Having
incomplete implementation of the National e-Governance Plan of India will only affect the success of the DI project.
India has poor regulations in the field of privacy protection, data
protection, cyber law, telegraph, e-governance, e-commerce, etc. Further, many legal experts believe that
e-governance and DI without cyber security is useless. The cyber security
trends in India have exposed the vulnerability of Indian cyberspace. Even
the National Cyber Security
Policy 2013 has not been
implemented till now. In these circumstances, Critical infrastructure protectionwould be a really tough task to manage for the
Indian Government. The project also lacks the concept of proper E-waste
management.
Related Initiatives
The DI initiative must be read along with the
Draft Internet of Things (IoT) Policy of India. However, the problems, the
challenges and the deficiencies in the Indian legal structure remain the same.
Status of Digital India
Digital India is in the progress mode till the month
of November 2014. The Apex Committee is going to analyse its progress very
soon. Media reports have also hinted at development of policies for Digital
India very soon.If correctly implemented, Digital India project can change the
way public services would be delivered in India in the near future.
As the part of "Digital India"
Indian government planned to launch Botnet cleaning centers. Government
also launched a digital locker under the name "Digi Locker".
Digital India Week
At the launch ceremony of Digital India Week
by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, top CEOs from India and abroad committed
to invest Rs 4.5 lakh crore towards this initiative. The CEOs said the
investments would be utilitized towards making smartphones and internet devices
at an affordable price in India which would help generate jobs in India as well
as reduce the cost of importing them from abroad. 9 Key points of Digital
India Programme are as follow
1. Broadband
Highways
2. Universal
Access to Phones
3. Public
Internet Access Programme
4. e-Governance
– Reforming government through Technology
5. e-Kranti
– Electronic delivery of services
6. Information
for All
7. Electronics
Manufacturing – Target NET ZERO Imports
8. IT
for Jobs
9. Early
Harvest Programmes
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