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Digital India | |
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Motto | Power To Empower |
Country | India |
Prime Minister(s) | Narendra Modi |
Ministry | |
Key people | |
Launched | 1 July 2015 |
Status | Active |
Website | digitalindia |
Digital India is a campaign launched by the Government of India to make its services available to citizens electronically via improved online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity. [1] [2] The initiative includes plans to connect rural areas with high-speed internet networks. It consists of three core components: the development of secure and stable digital infrastructure, delivering government services digitally, and universal digital literacy.
Launched on 1 July 2015, by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it both uses and supports other Government of India schemes, such as BharatNet, Make in India, Startup India, Standup India, industrial corridors, Bharatmala Sagarmala and Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, Atmanirbhar Bharat.
While India has seen an increase in internet users in recent years, [3] [4] frequent data breaches have raised concerns over the effectiveness of the Digital India campaign. [5] [6]
Digital India was launched by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on 1 July 2015, with an objective of connecting rural areas with high-speed Internet networks and improving digital literacy. [7] [8] [9] The Digital India program aimed to promote inclusive growth in the areas of electronic services, products, manufacturing and job opportunities. It is centered on three key areas – digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. [10] The plan also attempted to expand access to the internet in rural areas through the implementation of the Netcare System program.
The Government of India's entity Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) which executes the BharatNet project is the custodian of Digital India [11] (DI) project. [12] [13]
Some of the facilities which will be provided through this initiative are Bharat, digital locker, e-education, e-health, e-sign, e-shopping and the National Scholarship Portal. As part of Digital India, Indian Government planned to launch Botnet cleaning centers. [14] [15]
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan was executed by PMGDisha with an outlay of Rs 2,351.38 crore with the objective of making 6 crore rural households digitally literate by March 2020. [33] [34] [35] Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (abbreviated as PMGDisha [36] ) is an initiative under Digital India program, approved by The Union Cabinet chaired by the PM Narendra Modi. [37] [38] The main objective of the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan was to make 6 crore people in rural areas across India digitally literate, reaching around 40% of rural households by covering one member from every eligible household. [39] [40] [41]
Annual Digital India Summit & Awards were held in 2016. [42]
In 2014 the Andhra Pradesh government led by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his Council of Ministers held the first paperless e-Cabinet meeting in the country using the app e-Cabinet. [43] The ministers accessed the agenda of the Cabinet meeting in electronic form by logging into the app on their laptops or Tabs. [44]
E-Pragati, the Andhra Pradesh State Enterprise Architecture, is a framework designed to provide 750 services to over 30 million citizens by integrating 34 departments on a single platform. [45]
Bhudhaar is a 2018 E-Governance project that is intended to assign an 11-digit unique number [46] to every land parcel in the state of Andhra Pradesh, [47] as part of the "land hub in E-Pragati programme". [48] Bhuseva Authority, an inter-departmental committee was formed to implement and monitor its progress. [49] Eventually all land related transactions are planned to use Bhudhaar as a single source of truth to reduces land related disputes. On 20 Februarly 2019, Andhra pradesh Assembly gave its consent to the legal usage of Bhudhaar Number in land documents.
Electronic crop booking (e- Crop booking) is an Android application launched with an Andhra Pradesh company e-Panta, to assess crop details and to analyse the crop pattern across Andhra Pradesh state and to capture the standing crop in the state. [50] Photographs as evidence in the case of crop damage and insurance are also available as the arable land in the state has been captured in latitude and longitude along with subdivision and occupancy. Field officers are trained to capture the crop details in the existing agricultural fields using tabs and to upload the crop details to the server for every crop season. [51] The features include an online transfer of crop details to Webland (land record management website), evidence in the case of crop damage for insurance, evidence for crop loans by banks, crop pattern and water tax demand analysis, and GPS location of each land parcel across the state. The mobile app covers land use and the entire Pattadar's history of land cover. [52]
Loan charge creation project of Government of Andhra Pradesh was initially developed in India to curtail bogus and multiple loans issued to farmers. [53] By using this module, bankers can verify the land details in adangal and ROR‐1B copies and also know whether any loan is taken on the same land. The financial institutions like banks, Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) and Sub Registrar offices of Registration Department in Andhra Pradesh are covered under the application. Nearly 78 lakhs of farmers, 2.25 crores people of the State are covered under the project along with 61 Major Banks, PACS and District Cooperative Central Bank (DCCBs) having 6000 branches are using this application to deliver the loans and for creating charges on the land. [54]
In 2017 the government of Vietnam opened discussions with the government of India on emulating its use of cybersecurity and egovernance. [55]
At the launch ceremony of Digital India Week by Prime Minister Modi in Delhi on 1 July 2015, CEOs from India and abroad committed to invest ₹224.5 lakh crore (US$2.7 trillion) towards the initiative. [56] The CEOs said the investments would be utilized 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. [57]
Leaders from Silicon Valley, San Jose, California expressed their support for Digital India during Modi's visit in September 2015. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed his profile picture in support of Digital India and started a chain on Facebook and promised to work on WiFi Hotspots in rural area of India. [58] Google committed to provide broadband connectivity on 500 railway stations in India. Microsoft agreed to provide broadband connectivity to five hundred thousand villages in India and make India its cloud hub through Indian data centres. Qualcomm announced an investment of US$150 million in Indian startups. [59] Oracle plans to invest in 20 states and will work on payments and Smart city initiatives. [60] However, back in India, cyber experts expressed their concern over internet.org and viewed the Prime Minister's bonhomie with Zuckerberg as the government's indirect approval of the controversial initiative. [61] The Statesman reported, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi's chemistry with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the social media giant's headquarters in California may have been greeted enthusiastically in Silicon Valley but back home several social media enthusiasts and cyber activists are disappointed." [62] Later the Prime Minister office clarified that net neutrality will be maintained at all costs and vetoed the Basic Internet plans. [61] Digital India has also been influential in promoting the interests of the Indian Railways. [63]
The number of Indian internet subscribers grew to over 500 million by April 2017. [64] On 28 December 2015, Panchkula district of Haryana was awarded for being the top-performing district in the state under the Digital India campaign. [65] As of 2018, India was adding 10 million daily internet users a month, which at the time was the highest rate of rate of internet-adoption recorded anywhere in the world. [66]
Several academic scholars have critiqued ICTs in development. Some take issue with technological determinism, the notion that ICTs are a sure-fire antidote to the world's problems. [67] Instead, governments must adjust solutions to the specific political and social context of their nation. [67] Others note that technology amplifies underlying institutional forces, so technology must be accompanied by significant changes in policy and institutions in order to have meaningful impact. [68] [69]
It is being thought that there needs to be more research on the actual worth of these multimillion-dollar government and ICT for development projects. For the most part, the technological revolution in India has benefited the already privileged sectors of Indians. [67] It is also difficult to scale up initiatives to affect all Indians, and fundamental attitudinal and institutional change is still an issue. [70] While much ICT research has been conducted in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat, poorer states such as Bihar and Odisha are rarely mentioned. [70]
Digital India as a programme has been considered by some as a continuation of the long history of bias towards RIL, which has previously manifested in the form of altering TRAI regulations in favour of the company. Reliance Jio has cited the Digital India initiative numerous times for its own marketing purposes. [71]
The government has faced criticism over frequent data breaches. [5] [6] The Aadhaar biometrics have been criticised for being an easy target for hackers. [72]
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an Indian public sector company that operates retail payments and settlement systems in India. The organization is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, for creating a robust payment and settlement infrastructure in India.
Common Service Centres (CSCs) are a key component of the Digital India initiative launched by the Government of India. These centres aim to provide essential government and non-government services to citizens, particularly in rural and remote areas, through digital means. By acting as access points for various public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, and education services, CSCs play a crucial role in the digital empowerment of the underserved populations.
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Aawas Yojana is a social welfare programme under the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, to provide housing for the rural poor in India. A similar scheme for urban poor was launched in 2015 as Housing for All by 2022. Indira Awas Yojana was launched in 1985 by Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, as one of the major flagship programs of the Ministry of Rural Development to construct houses for the Below Poverty Line population in the villages.
Agriculture in India is highly susceptible to risks like droughts and floods. It is necessary to protect the farmers from natural calamities and ensure their credit eligibility for the next season. For this purpose, the Government of India introduced many agricultural social insurances throughout the country, the most important one of them being Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.
BharatNet, also known as Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), is a central public sector undertaking, set up by the Department of Telecommunications, a department under the Ministry of Communications of the Government of India for the establishment, management, and operation of the National Optical Fibre Network to provide a minimum of 100 Mbit/s broadband connectivity to all 250,000-gram panchayats in the country, covering nearly 625,000 villages, by improving the middle layer of nation-wide broadband internet in India to achieve the goal of Digital India.
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana is a financial inclusion program of the Government of India open to Indian citizens, that aims to expand affordable access to financial services such as bank accounts, remittances, credit, insurance and pensions. This financial inclusion campaign was launched by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on 28 August 2014. He had announced this scheme on his first Independence Day speech on 15 August 2014.
Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission is a country-wide campaign initiated by the Government of India on 2 October 2014 to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management and to create Open Defecation Free (ODF) villages. The program also aims to increase awareness of menstrual health management. It is a restructured version of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan which was launched by the Congress in 2009.
DigiLocker is an Indian state-owned secure cloud based digitization service provided by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under its Digital India initiative. DigiLocker allows access to digital versions of various documents including driver's licenses, vehicle registration certificates and academic mark sheets. It also provides 1 GB storage space to each account to upload scanned copies of legacy documents.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) is a credit-linked subsidy scheme by the Government of India to facilitate access to affordable housing for the low and moderate-income residents of the country. It envisaged a target of building 2 crore (20 million) affordable houses by 31 March 2022. It has two components: Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(Urban) (PMAY-U) for the urban poor and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Gramin) (PMAY-G and also PMAY-R) for the rural poor, the former administered by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the latter by Ministry of Rural Development. This scheme converges with other schemes to ensure that houses have a toilet, Saubhagya Scheme for universal electricity connection, Ujjwala Yojana LPG connection, access to drinking water and Jan Dhan banking facilities, etc.
Skill India or the National Skills Development Mission of India is a campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is managed by the National Skills Development Corporation of India.
Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana is a national mission to improve farm productivity and ensure better utilization of the resources in the country. The budget of ₹53 billion (US$640 million) in a time span of one year 2015-2016 has been allocated to this scheme. The decision was taken on 1 July 2015 at the meeting of Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, approved with an outlay of 50000 crore for period of 5 years.
The Pradhan Mantri fasal bima yojana (PMFBY) launched on 18 February 2016 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an insurance service for farmers for their yields. It was formulated in line with One Nation–One Scheme theme by replacing earlier two schemes Agricultural insurance in India#National Agriculture Insurance Scheme and Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme by incorporating their best features and removing their inherent drawbacks (shortcomings). It aims to reduce the premium burden on farmers and ensure early settlement of crop assurance claim for the full insured sum.
Give Up LPG Subsidy is a campaign that was launched in March 2015 by the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is aimed at motivating LPG users who are able to afford to pay the market price for LPG to voluntarily surrender their LPG subsidy. As of 23 April 2016, 10 million people had voluntarily given up the subsidy. The surrendered subsidy is being redistributed by the government in order to provide cooking gas connections to poor families in rural households free of cost. Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi and Tamil Nadu are the top five states to give up the subsidy.
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana was launched by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on 1 May 2016 to distribute 50 million LPG connections to women of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. A budgetary allocation of ₹80 billion (US$960 million) was made for the scheme. The scheme was replaced by the Ujjwala Yojana 2.0 in 2021. Although the scheme has expanded access to clean cooking technologies, the use of polluting fuels remains common, particularly in rural India.
JAM trinity refers to the government of India initiative to link Jan Dhan accounts, mobile numbers and Aadhaar cards of Indians to plug the leakages of government subsidies.
Saubhagya Scheme or Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana was an Indian government project to provide electricity to some households. The project was announced in September 2017 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said that the aim was to complete the electrification process by December 2018. Certain households identified via the Socio-economic and Caste Census (SECC) of 2011 will be eligible for free electricity connections, while others will be charged Rs. 500. On 16 November 2017, the government launched a website saubhagya.gov.in to disseminate information about the scheme. The total outlay of the project is Rs. 16, 320 crore while the Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) is Rs. 12,320 crore. The beneficiary household will get One LED lights, one DC power plug. It also includes the Repair and Maintenance of Meter Only (R&M) for 5 years. The scheme was closed in March 2022 since the target of 100% electrification was met.
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi is an initiative by the government of India that give farmers up to ₹6,000 (US$72) per year as minimum income support. The initiative was announced by Piyush Goyal during the 2019 Interim Union Budget of India on 1 February 2019. The scheme has cost ₹75,000 crore per annum and came into effect December 2018.
Atal Bhujal Yojana is a groundwater management scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 95th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, on 25 December 2019. The purpose of the scheme is to improve groundwater management in seven states of India.
Gramin Bhandaran Yojana, or Rural Godown Scheme, is an Indian government initiative to offer subsidies to individuals or organizations which build or repair rural godowns.