What is the news:

Punjab has become the first state to start storing quintessential J-Forms of farmers in a DigiLocker. With this, farmers will not be required to carry or submit physical copies of these forms, but just share the e-copies for availing of subsidies or loans.

An initiative of Punjab Mandi Board, the J-Forms generated for the ongoing Rabi Marketing Season (RMS) for all farmers have been put in the Digilockers. Farmers will no longer be dependent on the arhtiyas to get these crucial forms, but can simply download these and use.

What’s J-Form used for

J-Forms are required for a plethora of activities such as getting Income Tax waivers, subsidy on fertilisers; crop loans from banks; and even for getting their crop insurance and health insurance.

What is DigiLocker?

DigiLocker is a flagship initiative of Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) under Digital India Corporation (DIC). DigiLocker aims at ‘Digital Empowerment’ of citizen by providing access to authentic digital documents to citizen’s digital document wallet. The issued documents in DigiLocker system are deemed to be at par with original physical documents as per Rule 9A of the Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries providing Digital Locker facilities) Rules, 2016 notified on February 8, 2017 vide G.S.R. 711(E).

Benefits of DigiLocker

• Benefits to Citizens
  1. Important Documents Anytime, Anywhere!
  2. Authentic Documents, Legally at Par with Originals.
  3. Digital Document Exchange with the consent of the citizen.
  4. Faster service Delivery- Government Benefits, Employment, Financial Inclusion, Education, Health.

• Benefits to Agencies
  1. Reduced Administrative Overhead: Aimed at the concept of paperless governance. It reduces the administrative overhead by minimizing the use of paper and curtailing the verification process.
  2. Digital Transformation: Provides trusted issued documents. Issued Documents available via DigiLocker are fetched in real-time directly from the issuing agency.
  3. Secure Document Gateway: Acts as a secure document exchange platform like payment gateway between trusted issuer and trusted Requester/Verifier with the consent of the citizen.
  4. Real Time Verification: Provides a verification module enabling government agencies to verify data directly from issuers after obtaining user consent.