Introduction
Digital India Project has been very close to the heart of the Prime Minister and he is himself the Chairman of Monitoring Committee on Digital India.
The aim as envisaged by the PM is to prepare India for becoming a knowledge economy and for bringing good governance to citizens through synchronized and coordinated engagement of the entire Government.
Digital India program aims to provide Broadband Highways, Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity, Public Internet Access Programme, E-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology, eKranti – Electronic Delivery of Services, Information for All, Electronics Manufacturing: Target Net Zero Imports, IT for Jobs and Early Harvest Programmes.
All the existing and ongoing e-Governance initiatives have been revamped to align them with the principles of Digital India.
Projects being Envisaged under the Digital India Scheme
- Digital Locker System aims to minimize the use of physical documents and enable sharing of e-documents across agencies. The sharing of the e-documents will be done through registered repositories thereby ensuring the authenticity of the documents online.
- eSign framework would allow citizens to digitally sign a document online using Aadhaar authentication.
- MyGov.in has been implemented as a platform for citizen engagement in governance, through a “Discuss”, “Do” and “Disseminate” approach. The mobile App for MyGov would bring these features to users on a mobile phone.
- Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Mobile app would be used by people and Government organizations for achieving the goals of Swachh Bharat Mission.
- Online Registration System (ORS) under the eHospital application has been introduced. This application provides important services such as online registration, payment of fees and appointment, online diagnostic reports, enquiring availability of blood online etc.
- National Scholarships Portal is a one-stop solution for end to end scholarship process right from submission of student application, verification, sanction and disbursal to end beneficiary for all the scholarships provided by the Government of India.
- Digitize India Platform (DIP) for large-scale digitization of records in the country that would facilitate efficient delivery of services to the citizens.
- Bharat Net, a high-speed digital highway to connect all 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of the country. This would be the world’s largest rural broadband connectivity project using optical fiber.
- Next Generation Network (NGN), to replace 30-year-old exchanges, which is an IP-based technology to manage all types of services like voice, data, multimedia/ video and other types of packet switched communication services.
BSNL has undertaken large-scale deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the country. The user can latch on the BSNL Wi-Fi network through their mobile devices.
Implications of Digital India
Broadband connectivity in all Panchayats would be a stepping stone for e- governance. The fund allocation, greater transparency, and accountability in expenditure promote decision making and monitoring of social / I projects will become easier.
Wi-fi in schools and universities and Public Wi-Fi hotspots will enable knowledge gathering, improve collation and dissemination of information and will pave the way for smart classrooms.
The program will generate a huge number of IT, Telecom and Electronics jobs, both directly and indirectly.
Improvement in the governance by the usage of IT in the delivery of services related to various domains such as health, education, agriculture, banking, etc.
Conclusion
In order to deliver citizen services electronically and improve the way citizens and authorities transact with each other, it is imperative to have ubiquitous connectivity.
It is considered that connectivity will be one of the major criterions for enabling and providing technologies to facilitate delivery of services to citizens under this highly ambitious and farsighted Campaign.
Therefore, the government will need to prioritize the establishment of foolproof means to secure swift connectivity by way of ‘broadband highways’, which would serve as one of the main pillars of Digital India.
Credit – Olive greens
