The Digital India programme has created a lot of expectations both within and outside the country. The high profile launch of the programme in July 2015 and the subsequent pronouncements by the Prime Minister have given rise to high expectations that India will embrace a path of technology led transformation across all sectors of the economy and society.
How can these expectations be realised and sustained and the vision of Digital India achieved? It is important to understand that Digital India cuts across all sectors of governance, economy and society and is, therefore, very vast in its scope and objectives. Its vision is centred on three key areas: digital infrastructure for every citizen, providing governance and services on demand and digital empowerment of citizens.
The programme broadly covers nine pillars of key thrust areas, namely, broadband highways, universal access to mobile connectivity, public internet access programme, e-governance – reforming governance through technology, e-Kranti – electronic delivery of services, information for all, electronic manufacturing, IT for jobs and early harvest programmes. Each of these pillars requires massive and sustained efforts to ensure that the desired objectives are met.
A massive thrust to create digital and connectivity infrastructure reaching up to the village level is required to achieve universal access to digital services and bridge the digital divide. Access to broadband connectivity at village level would ensure that transformation through increasing digitalisation in various domains can really benefit the entire population. Universal access to mobile connectivity can make last mile connectivity and mobile broadband affordable for the masses. Implementation of the BharatNet project and the rollout of 3G and 4G connectivity across the country must be speeded up to achieve these objectives.
The public internet access programme is aimed at universalising access to common service centres. While increasing the number of such centres to cover every panchayat is important, it must be kept in mind that the bouquet of services being offered through these centres needs to be enlarged and made affordable. For example, education and skill development courses can be delivered through these centres in partnership with the private sector to benefit the rural youth and make these centres financially sustainable.
The two pillars on e-governance, namely, reforming government through technology and electronic delivery of services, require cross-sectoral and whole-of-government initiatives to really transform governance through technology.
Common platforms like Aadhaar for de-duplication and online authentication, Mobile Seva for mobile phone based delivery of services, digital locker for online storage and sharing of government issued documents, and e-Sign for Aadhaar based online digital signature are laudable initiatives in this direction.
However, massive efforts are required to ensure that these platforms are adopted by all departments both at the central and state levels to make the electronic delivery of services more efficient and avoid any duplication.
The services of various departments must also be integrated at the backend using these common processes and platforms to ensure that the citizens are not required to visit multiple portals and fill multiple forms with similar information to avail various services. Single sign-on mechanism must also be made mandatory for various portals to make the life of netizens easier. These initiatives would also transform the currently available services for businesses and help in improving the ease of doing business in the country.
The pillar on information for all aims at providing all information online and use of social media for interaction with the citizens. This requires much greater transparency and openness on the part of the government departments and use of tools like open data platform and social media to allow much greater participation of citizens in governance. Initiatives like data.gov.in and MyGov.in are steps in the right direction. However, very few states are using these platforms.
All states must adopt them to really have an impact on governance at the cutting edge. Domestic electronic manufacturing is a key pillar of Digital India. The target under this pillar is to achieve net zero imports in electronic hardware by 2020.
Recently, a number of incentives have been announced by the government to encourage domestic manufacturing in electronics. Duty structure on electronic components has also been rationalized to incentivize domestic manufacturing. However, the country is yet to see major investments in this area.
Developing a localised ecosystem for domestic electronic manufacturing is a must to sustain the momentum. Digital India is a visionary programme with a huge potential for technology led transformation of the country. However, sustaining the programme and achieving its vision require concerted efforts by all the stakeholders including the central government, all the states and the private
(The writer is a senior IAS officer with the Government of Tamil Nadu. He has led the conceptualisation and implementation of the Digital India programme while he was serving as Joint Secretary in the Department of Electronics and IT. The views are personal.)
