Digital India Campaign – Equipping the Nation with Digital

Digital India Campaign is a ray of hope in the underdeveloped areas. The Digital India campaign launched to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. Digital India Campaign would ensure that Government services are available to citizens electronically. It would also bring public accountability through mandated delivery of Government’s services electronically, a Unique ID, and e-Pramaan based on authentic and standard-based interoperable and integrated government applications and data. 

Digital India Campaign can help improve the government services and the efficiency of India’s job market. Digital technologies create any significant value in areas of the job market as well. Digital technologies have proved to be beneficial for its users in the times of the hustle and bustle. The ‘Digital India’ campaign of the Government of India aims to develop digital/electronic infrastructure, improving universal access through Information and Communication Technology and citizens’ digital empowerment. 

They are making services digitally transformed for improving Ease of Doing Business, making financial transactions electronic & cashless, etc. The digital empowerment of citizens involves universal digital literacy, universally accessible digital resources, making all documents/ certificates available on the cloud, ensuring the availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages, collaborative digital platforms for participative governance, and portability entitlements through the cloud. The current scheme is a beneficiary to other government schemes, including Make in India, Bharatmala, Sagarmala, Startup India, BharatNet, & Standup India.

About Digital India Campaign

Digital India Campaign is an initiative or a flagship program of India’s Government with a vision to transform India into a new digitally empowered society & knowledge economy. The Indian Government has also launched the Digital India campaign to make available government services to its citizens electronically through online infrastructure improvement and enhanced internet connectivity. The campaign aims to empower the country digitally in the domain of technology. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched this campaign on 1st July 2015.

The Digital India campaign has led our Nation to substantial growth with a massive push in using the Internet & data. A lot of new endeavors like data localization, Local pe Vocal, etc. support the initiatives of Digital India. So we see more and more digitization and uptake of India centric services. The Aarogya Sethu App and its support to the Nation, while we work through the pandemic are classic examples. These initiatives supported by Indian technology make our country more self-reliant in the face of international issues.

With applications like Cred, BHIM UPI, etc., you now have services available on your computer, and some of these services are even available outside our country. The Government has also supported the growth of citizen services. With this, we see that though India is a complex country, there has been a lot of improvement and achievement.

Digital India Campaign focuses on three prime areas:

1. It provides digital infrastructure as a source of utility to every citizen.
2. To provide governance & services on demand of the citizens.
3. It mainly looks after the digital empowerment of every citizen.

Digital India Campaign is a vision of inclusive growth in electronic services, products, manufacturing, and job/employment opportunities.

Objectives of the Campaign

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

The primary agenda of the Digital India Campaign are as follows: 

1. To provide good quality high-speed internet facilities in all gram panchayats.
2. To avail n easy access to Common Service Centre in all the locality.
3. Digital India Campaign is a great initiative that combines many ideas & thoughts into a single, comprehensive vision so that each of them is a part of a bigger goal.
4. The Digital India Campaign also focuses on reconstructing many existing schemes.

Benefits of Digital India Campaign

Digital India Campaign is an initiative that encompasses plans to connect the country’s rural areas with high-speed Internet. India’s digital economy might cross $1 trillion by the year 2022.

Some of the significant advantages of the Digital India Campaign are:

1. Around more than 12000 post office branches in the rural areas are linked electronically.
2. There has been a drastic increase in electronic transactions related to e-governance.
3. An optical fiber network of almost 2 74,246 km has connected over more than 1.15 lakh Gram Panchayats under the Bharat Net program.
4. Under the National e-Governance Project, a Common Service Center provides access to information and communication technology. Through computer or Internet access, the CSCs provide multimedia content about e-governance, education, health, etc.
5. Establishment of digital villages and well-equipped facilities like solar lighting, LED assembly unit, sanitary napkin production unit, and Wi-Fi in deprived areas.
6. Internet data is a useful tool for delivering services to citizens, and urban internet penetration has reached 64%.
7. The number of active internet users has also increased and reached 300 million, from 10-15 million daily users. It is also estimated that the number would double by the year 2020.

Nine Pillars of Digital India Campaign

The Nine Pillars of Digital India Campaign is designed to simplify the government processes and empower the Nation by implementing multiple information technology projects & e-governance strategies.  Although our Government has been enhancing the digital platform & is delivering services to the public, still implementing these services is in progress to reach ordinary people all over the Nation.

The pillars of Digital India Campaign include:

• Broadband highways- This program was initiated by the Government to offer broadband to 2, 50,000 gram panchayats by 2016.  As part of this program, the networks planned to integrate with cloud infrastructure to provide cloud services and high-speed internet connectivity to gram panchayats. 
• Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity- The second pillar of the Digital India campaign to penetrate network connectivity & offer seamless mobile network connectivity by filling gaps.  Offering the service mobile network coverage to 55,619 villages in India that do not have good mobile connectivity is the current initiative’s focus. 
• Public Internet Access Programme- This initiative aimed to convert post offices into multi-service centers and starting Common Service Centers (CSC) worldwide.  The number of CSCs aimed to increase to 2, 50,000 to have a CSE per village in the Nation. The deitY was given the responsibility to implement this project. The Department of Posts is given the responsibility to convert 1,50,00 post offices as multi-service centers. 
• E-Governance – Reformation through Technology- This digital initiative campaign focuses on redesigning the government processes with information technology to make the Government efficient and straightforward.  The same could aim the Government to deliver its services efficiently across various departments. Under this, reforming the processes may include simplifying application forms, managing, tracking the applications, managing online repositories, and integrating different services (ex. Linking Aadhaar and payment gateways). 

Other Vital Pillars

E-Kranti – Electronic Delivery of Services- The next pillar, eKranti, aims to provide easy access to all Government related services to people of all localities in the Nation.  However, different projects were taken for consideration by the Government to transform e-governance & mobile governance.  The initiative integrates the government services through cloud services, delivers services through mobile, and enables fast-tracking and approval for the Government projects.

Information for all – The objective of this pillar is to avail its citizens of all the information they require. It also makes communication of citizens with the Government much comfortable than physically going to different government departments to gather information. As a part of the initiative, the Government planned to engage with citizens through social media and the website.

Electronics Manufacturing – The initiative promotes electronic manufacturing to reduce electronics imports from various other countries.  The Government has set a goal of avoiding electronics imports by 2020.  The focused areas of development include Mobiles, Medical electronics, consumer electronics, smart card implementation, skill development in electronics development, and several other projects that support electronics manufacturing. 

IT for Jobs – The particular pillar focuses primarily on skill development amongst the youth and places them in good hands like the IT / ITeS sector.  As a part of the initiative, the Government offers IT training to the youth in villages and other rural areas or towns. The projects related to this particular initiative also promote the Indian BPO industry.

Early Harvest Programmes – The digital projects for the short duration implementation got included in the early harvest programs. Some of the projects include:

• Finding missing children through a national portal
• Biometric attendance for employees
• Public Wi-Fi hotspots 
• IT platform for Messages 
• Wi-Fi hotspots in all universities
• eBooks implementation in schools 
• Weather and disaster alerts through SMS 
• Secure email within Government 

Achievements of Digital India Campaign

One of the Digital India Campaign’s achievements has been the Jandhan-Aadhaar- Mobile initiative’s runaway that provided a digital identity to millions of Indian citizens. It has also provided access to the banking system to millions of Indians earlier excluded from the formal economy.

In a country like India, it isn’t easy to provide a quality education through conventional infrastructure. Hence digital education has managed to fill the gap of delivering quality education at scale. Government initiatives like SWAYAM, NAD, E-Acharya, etc. in education under the Digital India umbrella significantly impact students’ education and teacher’s professional growth. In the realm of this digital literacy, the Government’s effort Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan, aiming to make 60 million Indians digitally literate, will have a far-reaching impact the coming time.

With Covid-19, there has been a massive mindset shift towards digital education as it has become a necessity because of the disturbance of physical classes. All such initiatives will now become mainstream and will play an essential role in the education domain. S.Chand has also launched initiatives such as Learnflix, Mylestone, etc. in the last few years to digitally empower India’s education system. We are sure that these reforms will succeed a long way in making education accessible to the masses.

Other Achievements of Digital India Campaign

• Direct benefit transfers of Rs 7.44 lakh crore using Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and mobile to beneficiaries in 439 schemes
• PMGDISHA, the world’s most significant digital literacy program, has trained 2.21 crore beneficiaries
• Around 3.76 lakh common service centers for govt schemes established offering digital services in banking, insurance, MGNREGA wage payments, pension, ticket booking, digital skill, telemedicine, and Wi-Fi in villages.
• Digital payment transactions at an all-time are high. In March 2019, the overall number of digital transactions reached around 332.34 crores.
• The number of transactions via BHIM-UPI was at an all-time high in March 2019 at 79.9 crores.
• To provide IT employment opportunities in semi-urban areas, the govt opened 202 BPO centers in India’s approximately 100 towns.
• India emerged as the second-largest mobile phone manufacturer globally, with 268 mobile handset and accessories manufacturing units in the last five years.

Conclusion

As a Nation, India has come across a long way ahead in digitalization and has another long way to go to achieve the mission of the Digital India Campaign. We can spot the difference in no. of internet users and improved e-governance. But there is still digital illiteracy in many parts of India. ‘Digital India‘ will succeed when its benefits are available to every citizen of India. Digital India Campaign is promoted by the Government to use maximum things digitally. It also gives an excellent contribution to the Growth of India. Digital India campaign’s primary aim is to reduce paperwork and connect every area of India with high-speed internet connectivity.

Through the Digital India campaign, the Government aimed to bridge the digital gap by making available digital solutions in a cost-efficient manner to ordinary citizens. In the last few years, the Government claims to have connected 250,000-gram panchayats with a network of approximately 3.40 lakh km of optical fiber, and 1.29 lakh gram panchayats have been connected digitally. The cost of connectivity, cost of mobility, hardware, device, and so on is reducing. We have a lot to achieve today because it is all about how a budget phone can work beyond mere connectivity in remote areas or stable fixed broadband connectivity. Nevertheless, it is still a great initiative. After all, we need to start somewhere. However, it is only the starting of the ‘Digital India’ campaign, and we have a lot to cover. Aatmnirbhar Sena is also planning to come up with plans to support the digital India campaign.