Government mulls Digital India programme to connect all villages – Programme ‘Digital India’ Approved
- The government announced a special programme to transform India into a digitally empowered society.
- The programme “Digital India” was approved at a meeting of the union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- The programme aims to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.
- The approval was a follow up to key decisions taken on the design of the programme during a meeting held by the prime minister Aug 7.
- The programme has been envisaged by the Department of electronics and information technology.
- The programme will be implemented in phases from the current year till 2018.
- 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 source of funding for most e-governance projects at present is through budgetary provisions of respective ministries or departments in the central or state governments.
- The requirements of funds for individual project(s) for Digital India would also be worked out by respective nodal ministries.
- The programme envisions high-speed internet as a core utility which would be made available in all gram panchayats.
- The Programme, which would be implemented in a phased manner and is estimated to cost about Rs 113,000 crore, including ongoing schemes being run by the telecom department and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), as well as on new schemes.
- Mobile phone and bank accounts would enable participation in digital and financial space at individual levels.
- It will also seek to provide safe and secure cyber space in the country, adding that the services would also be available in Indian languages.
The vision of the programme is centred on three key areas
- digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen – digital identity, mobile phone and bank account, safe & secure cyber space;
- governance & services on demand – services available in real time on online and mobile platform, making financial transactions electronic and cashless, &
- digital empowerment of citizens – all documents, certificates available on cloud.
- Digital India envisages connecting 2.5 lakh villages by broadband and phones, reduce import of telecom imports to zero, wi-fi in 2.5 lakh schools, all universities, public wi-fi hotspots for citizens and creating 1.7 crore direct and 8.5 crore indirect jobs.
- Other impact points include training 1.7 crore citizens for IT, telecom and electronics jobs, and delivering e-governance and e-services.
- A monitoring committee on execution of the Digital India program, to be headed by the Prime Minister as chairman of the panel, will be set up.
- Other members of the panel will include ministers of finance, communications & IT, research & development, human resources development, and health. Special invitees to the panel will include principal secretary to the PM, cabinet secretary, secretaries of expenditure, planning, DoT and Posts.
- The DeitY secretary will be the convenor of the panel.
