Digital India is a visionary initiative of the Prime Minister to transform India by leveraging the power of information technology. It is aimed to empower the poor and the underprivileged by using technology that is affordable, development and inclusive.

Growth of IT industry in India can be divided into three phases:

• Phase-I: Indian IT professionals and IT companies travelled to different parts of the world and established their presence.
• Phase-II: Global IT giants started investing in India and tapped its vast domestic market.
• Phase-III: This the current phase where India is witnessing great growth in innovation and entrepreneurship led by Start-ups which are mostly founded by young Indians. India has emerged as the third largest Start-up ecosystem in the world.

Digital Identity:

• Digital Identity is the key to unlock access and potential of the Digital India Programme. To provide a unique digital identity, Aadhaar has covered around 122 crore residents of the country.
• It has provided a digital identity to supplement the physical identity of individuals for delivery of various social welfare programmes and enabled portability.
• It has curbed leakages and corrupt practices from the public welfare delivery mechanism.
• Today financial entitlements under government services are being delivered using Aadhaar based Direct Benefit Transfer.
• The Supreme Court, in its historic judgment on Aadhaar, has not only upheld the Constitutional validity of Aadhaar but also described it as a tool for empowerment of poor people.

Digital Infrastructure:

Building robust digital infrastructure is essential for the success of Digital India.

1. Bharat Net

• Bharat Net aims to provide high speed internet in rural areas of India by building optical fibre network connecting all the 2.50 lakh Gram Panchayats of India.

2. National Knowledge Network

• National Knowledge Network (NKN) is a state-of-the art network to promote collaboration and exchange of knowledge among educational and research institutions.
• Some of the NKN enabled applications are: Virtual Class Rooms, Collaborative research groups over NKN (closed user groups), NDL, NPTEL, various Grids (like Cancer Grid, Brain Grid, Climate Change Grid) etc.

3. GI Cloud (Meghraj)

• In Order to utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing, this initiative aims to accelerate delivery of e-services in the country while optimizing ICT spending of the Government.
• This has ensured optimum utilization of the infrastructure and speed up the development and deployment of eGov application.

4. eSign

• eSign Electronic Signature Service is an innovative initiative for allowing easy, efficient, and secure signing of electronic documents by authenticating signer using e-KYC services.
• Some applications enhancing services delivery are Digital Locker, e-filing Financial Sector, account opening in banks and post office, driving licence renewal, vehicle registration, certificates for birth, caste, marriage, income certificate etc.

Digital India for Better Governance:

1. JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) Trinity for Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT):
   • is helping the poor receive the benefits directly into their bank accounts. This has not only enhanced efficiency of service delivery mechanism but also eliminated leakages and curbed corruption.
2. Digital Payments:
   • Today, BHIM-UPI (Unified Payment Interface) platform and RuPay debit cards have become very popular digital payment instruments for sending collecting the money and for payments at merchant outlets BHIM-UPI is unique mobile based payment innovation of India that is being appreciated world over.

• UMANG:
• has put the power of governance in the hands of common people. It is a single mobile app that offers more than 307 government services. The target is to provide more than 1200 digital services on a single mobile app.

1. Digital Delivery of Services:

Some of these popular digital services are:

• National Scholarship Portal: has become a one stop shop for all the scholarship needs of students.
• Jeevan Pramaan: for ease for verification of pensioners using Aadhaar digital identity
• eHospital and Online registration services: aim to ensure that patients can get easy access to doctors
• Soil Health Card: National Soil Health Card scheme was launched in 2015 to provide information on soil health digitally
• eNAM: Electronic National Agriculture Market (eNAM) is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing Agricultural (APMC) Mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
• eVisa: Service of e-Visa involves complete online application for which no facilitation is required by any intermediary/agents etc.
• eCourts: with eCourts mobile app and portal it has become easy to keep a track of case status of cases going on in different courts across India. Lawyers and Litigants can also avail notification services about their cases.
• National Judicial Data Grid: This is a comprehensive data base of 9.16 crore court cases and court judgments that has been integrated with the eCourts. It provides information on cases pending, cases disposed and cases filed in both High Court and District Court complexes in the areas of civil and criminal cases.
• GeM: Government eMarketplace (GeM) is a transparent online market place for government procurements. This has not only brought transparency in Government procurements but also created opportunities for micro, small and medium enterprises to sell their products to Government departments and PSUs.

Digital India for Employment, Entrepreneurship & Empowerment:

Digital Service delivery near door-step (Common Services Centres):

A vast network of more than 3.06 lakh of digital services delivery centres, has been created to provide access to digital services especially in rural areas at an affordable cost.

• These centres have also led to empowerment of marginalized sections of the society by creating jobs for 12 lakh people and by promoting rural entrepreneurs, out of which are women.
• CSCs have also undertaken the Stree Swabhiman initiative to create awareness about menstrual health and hygiene among rural women. Under this initiative, more than 300 micro sanitary pad manufacturing units have been opened in rural areas. These units have not only provided livelihood opportunity to rural women but have also made low cost sanitary pads locally available.

Digital Literacy for the Masses:

• In line with the objective to make one person e-literate in every household in the country, two schemes were launched viz. NDLM and DISHA, wherein people were trained and certified in Digital Literacy.
• In line with the earlier schemes, Government has approved a new scheme “Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA)” to usher in digital literacy in rural India. This is the largest digital literacy mission of the world.

BPO Promotion in Small Towns:

To create employment opportunities for local youth and secure balanced regional growth of Information Technology and IT Enabled Services (IT/ITES) Sector in each State, India BPO Promotion Scheme and North East BPO Promotion Scheme have been launched under Digital India Programme.

Digital India for Make in India:

Promotion of Electronics Manufacturing:

• Government of India has undertaken various initiatives to promote electronics manufacturing in India, with the target to reduce imports.
• The Phased Manufacturing Programme for mobile phones was launched with the goal of widening and deepening the mobile handsets and components manufacturing ecosystem in India.

Initiatives in Emerging Technologies:

• Centres of Excellence (CoE) are being set up in the areas of Internet of Things (IoT), Internal Security, Large Area Flexible Electronics, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), Tactile Graphics for Visually Impaired, Agriculture and Environment, ESDM Fintech, Language Technology, Automotive Electronics, Virtual Augmented Reality, Medical Tech and Health Informatics, Block Chain, Gaming and Animation, and Biometrics.

Cyber Security

• To create an inclusive, safe and secure cyber space for sustainable development, the Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Clearing and malware analysis centre) has been set up to provide alerts to users for preventing losses of financial and other data.
• The centre is providing facility to clean botnets in real time.
• National Cyber Co-ordination Centre has been made operational in 2017.

Way Forward:

India is today among the top three global economies of digital consumers. Concerted efforts to facilitate and promote process of digitalization including upgrading digital infrastructure, augmenting capacity to develop standards and testing for conformity assessment, promoting electronics manufacturing with appropriate incentives, developing capacity to harness emerging technologies and strengthening cyber security as more services, including digital payments, permeate the economy has the potential to create a trillion-dollar digital economy by 2025.

TID-BITS:

PM Launches historic Support and Outreach Initiative for MSME Sector

As part of this programme, the Prime Minister unveiled 12 key initiatives which will help the growth, expansion and facilitation of MSMEs across the country

Access to Credit:

• Launch of the 59 Minute loan portal to enable easy access to credit for MSMEs.
• 2% interest subvention for all GST registered MSMEs on fresh or incremental loans.
• All companies with a turnover of more than Rs 500 crore, must now compulsorily be brought on the Trade Receivables e-Discounting System (TReDS) Joining this portal will enable entrepreneurs to access credit from banks, based on their upcoming receivables resolving problems of cash cycle.

Access to Markets:

• Public Sector companies asked to compulsorily procure 25 percent, instead of 20 percent of their total purchases, from MSME.
• Out of the 25% procurement mandated from MSMEs, 3% must now be reserved for women entrepreneurs.
• All public sector undertakings of the Union Government must now compulsorily be a part of GeM.

Technology Upgradation:

• 20 hubs will be formed across the country, and 100 spokes in the form of tool rooms to be established.

Ease of Doing Business:

• Clusters to be formed of pharma MSMes – 70% cost of establishing these clusters will be borne by the Union Government.
• The return under 8 labour laws and 10 Union regulations must now be filled only once a year.
• Establishments to be visited by an Inspector will be decided through a computerised random allotment.
• Under air pollution and water pollution laws, now both these have been merged as a single consent – the return will be accepted through self-certification.
• Ordinance has been brought, under which, for minor violations under the companies Act, the entrepreneur will no longer have to approach the Courts, but can correct them through simple procedures.

Social Security for MSME Sector Employees:

• A mission to be launched to ensure that they have Jan Dhan Accounts, provident fund and insurance