Digital India dream - the road ahead (IT + IT = IT)

The story: India's Prime Minister is a digital believer, and six years of Digital India programme bear his imprint clearly. He expressed his view on t

Digital India dream - the road ahead (IT + IT = IT)

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• The story: India's Prime Minister is a digital believer, and six years of Digital India programme bear his imprint clearly. He expressed his view on the same in July 2021.
• Points to note: The data and demographic dividend combined with India’s proven tech prowess presents massive opportunity for the country, and this decade will be ‘India’s techade’. (techade - technology + decade)

1. Diksha - It stands for "Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing", and serves as National Digital Infrastructure for Teachers. All teachers across the nation will be equipped with advanced digital technology.
2. eNAM - It was launched on 14th April 2016 as a pan-India electronic trade portal linking Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) across the States.
3. eSanjeevani - It is a telemedicine service platform of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
4. DigiBunai - It aids the weavers to create digital artwork and translate the saree design to be loaded to the looms. DigiBunai™ is a first of its kind Open Source software for Jacquard and dobby weaving.
5. PM SVANidhi scheme - The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), for providing affordable loans to street vendors. It incentivises digital transactions by the street vendors.
6. Digital solutions during Covid-19 - Contact tracing app, Aarogya Setu.
7. Digital India Programme - It was launched in 2015, and has been enabled for several important Government schemes, such as BharatNet, Make in India, Startup India and Standup India, industrial corridors, etc.

• Vision areas: The government wants digital infrastructure as utility for all Indians. It wants governance and services on demand as well. That will mean "digital empowerment" of citizens.
• Goals: India has to be prepared for a knowledge future, and for being transformative and to realize IT (Indian Talent) + IT (Information Technology) = IT (India Tomorrow). This is a new slogan - IT + IT = IT.
• Achievements:

1. Digital payments - The introduction of Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which introduced the benefits of digital payments in every part of the country. From flourishing businesses to modest street vendors, UPI is helping everyone with payments and transactions. This encourages a number of private players to provide alternatives for digital payments which completely transformed the Indian economy.
2. Easing business operations - The Electronic Customer Identification System (e-KYC), the Electronic Document Storage System (DigiLocker) and the Electronic Signature System (eSign) were introduced to help businesses streamline their operations.
3. JAM Trinity and more - What started as a simple step to kick off the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile) to weed out leakages in the system, today empowered the entire vaccination drive for Covid, making India only the second nation to USA that administered 20 crore vaccines. However, the Cowin portal was heavily criticised for being English-langauge based, and catering largely to the educated elite.

• Way forward: There are roadblocks in the way of its successful implementation like digital illiteracy, poor infrastructure, low internet speed, lack of coordination among various departments, issues pertaining to taxation etc. These need to be addressed in order to realize the full potential. Six steps that can help are (i) Inculcation of scientific temper, where perception doesn’t drive policy, (ii) Access to data and lower costs of devices especially smartphones, (iii) High speed technology and seamless connectivity (5G, 6G), (iv) Quality and local language content, (v) A secure and safe cyberspace with clear spaces for redressal, ombudsmen, grievance redressal officers, (vi) Renewable energy, seamless power supply, green technology and lastly more services to be brought online with more departments talking to each other.

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