E-governance initiatives in India took a broader dimension in the mid 1990s for wider sectoral applications with emphasis on citizen-centric services. The major ICT initiatives of the Government included, inter alia, some major projects, such as railway computerization, land record computerisation etc., which focused mainly on the development of information systems. Later on, many states started ambitious individual e-governance projects aimed at providing electronic services to citizens.

The Indian Government launched the Digital India campaign to make government services available to citizens electronically by online infrastructure improvement and also by enhancing internet connectivity. It also aims to empower the country digitally in the domain of technology. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the campaign on 1st July 2015.

• Governance and services on demand – DI aims to integrate processes and information across departments and jurisdictions seamlessly so to help provide real-time services to citizens both – on online and mobile platforms, digitally enable processes for businesses, creating a digitally enabled cashless economy and creating cloud-based repository for easy access for the citizens as well as better planning and decision-making with the help of GIS.
• Digital empowerment of citizens – Provide digital literacy and digital services to all citizens through universally accessible digital resources and services in several Indian languages and introduction of collaborative digital platforms, availability of all documents and certificates online and availability of all entitlements through cloud. 

 

Funding: Rs 3, 958 crore for 2020-21

• Rs 6,000 crores allocated in 2020-21 budget for BharatNet, Dept of Telecommunication (DoT);
• Rs 3000 crore allocated in 2020-21 budget for development of Skill India programme, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MoSDE);
• INR 8000 crore allocated in 2020-21 budget for the National Mission on Quantum Computing and Technology, Ministry of Science & Technology (MoST);

 

History

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. The vision of Digital India programme is inclusive growth in areas of electronic services, products, manufacturing and job opportunities etc. and it is centred on three key areas – Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen, Governance & Services on Demand and Digital Empowerment of Citizens.

 

Digital India Initiative

The Government of India entity Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) which executes the BharatNet project is the custodian of Digital India (DI) project. Bh5aratNet will connect all the 625,000 villages of India by December 2018.

 

Digital India
Date of launching	1st July 2015
Government Ministry	Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Finance Ministry
Launched by	PM Narendra Modi
Minister of E&IT (As of January 2021)	Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad
Official website	https://digitalindia.gov.in/

 

e-Kranti : National e-Governance Plan 2.0

 The national level e-governance programme called National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) was initiaited in 2006. There were 31 Mission Mode Projects under National e-Governance Plan covering a wide range of domains viz. agriculture, land records, health, education, passports, police, courts, municipalities, commercial taxes and treasuries etc. 24 Mission Mode Projects have been implemented and started delivering either full or partial range of envisaged services.

 

Objectives of Digital India

The motto of the Digital India Mission is ‘Power to Empower’. There are three core components to the Digital India initiative. They are digital infrastructure creation, digital delivery of services, and digital literacy.

The major objectives of this initiative are listed below:

1. To provide high-speed internet in all gram panchayats.
2. To provide easy access to Common Service Centre (CSC) in all the locality.
3. Digital India is an initiative that combines a large number of ideas and thoughts into a single, comprehensive vision so that each of them is seen as part of a larger goal.
4. The Digital India Programme also focuses on restructuring many existing schemes that can be implemented in a synchronized manner.

 

Advantages of Digital India

• Paves the way to E-governance
• Increase in Revenue
• Removal of the black economy
• Digital Empowerment of citizens
• Governance and services on demand
• Infrastructure as a utility to each citizen
• Empowerment to the people
• Creation of new jobs

 

Initiatives Under Digital India

 

AADHAR: One of the key strengths of ‘Digital India’, wherein every resident of the country is given a unique identity number.

Bharat Broadband Network (BBNL): This is the custodian of Digital India. The creation of the National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) has been mandated in India.

Centre for Excellence for Internet of Things (CoE-IT): The main objective of the center is for creating domain capability and innovative applications.

CERT-IN: This is formed with the intention to secure Indian cyberspace.

Common Services Centres (CSCS): CSCs are the access points for the delivery of essential public utility services, healthcare, social welfare schemes, financial, education, and agriculture services.

Cyber Swachhta Kendra: The purpose of this is to generate secure cyberspace by detecting botnet infections in India and to notify, enable cleaning, and secure systems of end-users so as to prevent further infections.

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana: This is one of the flagship programs of the Power Ministry (MoP) and is designed to provide a continuous power supply to the entire rural India.

DigiLocker: A digital wallet to empower citizens digitally.

Digital Saksharta Abhiyaan (DISHA): This aims to provide IT training to 52.5. lakh persons.

Digitize India Platform: This platform provides digitization of scanned document images or physical documents.