DIGITAL INDIA

The Digital India programme is a flagship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy by the use of technology. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently launched the 'Digital India Week' in the national capital to emphasize the need of the same in rapidly globalizing society.

VISION

1) Digital Infrastructure as a Core Utility to Every Citizen like availability of hardware and broadband connectivity .

2) Governance and Services on Demand means access to Govt. and ability to communicate directly and for transparency.

3) Digital Empowerment of Citizens as for capacity building.

4)To generate employment directly (as the infrastructure demand will go up and since India cannot import all of them ‘Make In India’ if implemented properly will generate huge number of electronic jobs) and indirectly (Net connectivity will open doors to the knowledge of world and thus will help in skill enhancement and hence the employability).

APPROACH

1)To align the existing or ongoing e-Governance initiatives with the principles of Digital India by scope enhancement, process Reengineering and deployment of emerging technologies like cloud & mobile to enhance the delivery of Government services to citizens.

2) Public Private Partnerships would be preferred wherever feasible to implement e-Governance projects with adequate management and strategic control.

3)Adoption of Unique ID would be promoted to facilitate identification, authentication and delivery of benefits also integrating various systems like already implemented LPG subsidy.

4) The positions of Chief Information Officers (CIO) would be created in at least 10 key Ministries so that various e-Governance projects could be designed and implemented faster. CIO positions will be at Additional Secretary/Joint Secretary level with over-riding powers on IT in the respective Ministry.

5) The programme will be tracked by Monitoring Committee on Digital India headed by the Prime Minister  which will be constituted with representation drawn from relevant Ministries/ Departments to provide leadership and for setting goals.

 6) Digital India Advisory Group chaired by the Minister of Communications and IT and an Apex Committee chaired by the Cabinet Secretary  to solicit views of external stakeholders and to provide inputs to the Monitoring Committee on Digital India 

CHALLENGES

1)Cyber security: Digital India programme has the ability to convert India into a knowledge society but the program should be built on the foundation of cyber security. To ensure no leakage of demographic data outside our country which might jeopardize our sovereignty.

2)Connectivity for all: To reach the goal set Govt. will have to provide connectivity throughout India .Govt. already has started the mission to connect at village Panchayat level by National Optical Fibre Network(NOFN) with plan to connect all the 2,50,000 Gram panchayats in the country.

3)Misuse: With increasing availability there is a need to strengthen our existing IT laws to deter people from the misuse of net like cyber bullying, pornography etc. For this Govt. should decide stringent punishment , lip service  alone won’t do any good.

4)Language: Since India is home of many languages with very less percentage of people being able to read and write English ,one of the biggest challenge would be to provide content in local language which as of now mostly in English.

CONCLUSION

If we can manage to overcome these above mentioned challenges this program could be a major game changer and help achieve India’s dream to emerge as a superpower.

Author: Palak Tiwari, a freelancer writer based in Bhopal