ECONOMICS PROJECT DRAFT

DIGITAL INDIA
By Raghav Krishna H, XII-D
Digital India is a agship programme of the Government of
India with a vision to transform India into a digitally
empowered society and knowledge economy. The programme
was launched on July 1, 2015 by Hon’ Prime Minister Shri
Narendra Modi.

Vision Areas of Digital India

Digital Infrastructure as a core utility to every citizen:

i. Availability of high speed internet as a core utility for

delivery of services to citizens.

ii. Cradle to grave digital identity that is grave, unique,

lifelong, online and authentic able to every citizen.

iii. Mobile phone and bank account enabling citizen

participation in digital and nancial space.

iv. Easy access to a common service centre.

v. Shareable private space on a public cloud.

vi. Safe and secure cyber-space.

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Governance & Services on Demand:

i. Seamlessly integrated services across departments or

jurisdictions.

ii. Availability of services in real time from online and mobile

platforms.

iii. All citizen entitlements to be portable and available on the

cloud.

iv. Digitally transformed services for improving ease of doing

business.

v. Making nancial transactions electronic and cashless.

vi. Leveraging Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) for

decision support systems and development.
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 Digital empowerment of Citizens:

i. Universal digital literacy.

ii. Universally accessible digital resources

iii. Availability of digital resources/services in the Indian

market.

iv. Collaborative digital platforms for participative governance.

v. Citizens not required to physically submit govt documents/

certi cates.
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Pillars of Digital India

Digital India is an umbrella programme that covers multiple

government ministries and departments. It weaves together a
large number of ideas and thoughts into a single,
comprehensive vision so that each of them can be
implemented as part of a larger goal.

Each individual element stands on its own, but is also part of

the larger picture. Digital India is to be implemented by the
entire government with overall coordination being done by the
Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY).

Digital India aims to provide the much needed thrust to nine

pillars of growth areas, namely:

i. Broadband Highways

ii. Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity

iii. Public Internet Access Programme

iv. e-Governance: Reforming Government through technology

v. e-Kranti - Electronic Delivery of Services

vi. Information for All

vii. Electronics Manufacturing

viii. IT for jobs and Early Harvest Programmes.

Each of these areas is a complex programme in itself and cuts
across multiple Ministries and Departments.

• Ministries/Departments/States would fully leverage the

Common and Support ICT infrastructure established by
Gol. DeitY would also evolve/lay down standards and
policy guidelines, provide technical and handholding
support, undertake capacity building and R&D etc.

• The existing/ongoing e-governance initiatives would be

suitably revamped to align them with the principles of
Digital India. Scope enhancement, process reengineering,
use of integrated and interoperable systems systems and
deployment of emerging technologies like cloud and
mobile would be undertaken to enhance e the delivery of
Government services to citizens.

• States would be given exibility to identify inclusion

additional state-speci c projects, which are relevant for
their socio-economic needs.

• e-Governance would be promoted through a centralised

initiative to the extent necessary, to ensure citizen-centric
service orientation, interoperability of various e-
Governance application and optimal utilisation of ICT
infrastructure/resources, while adopting a decentralised
implementation model.

• Successes would be identi ed and their replication

promoted proactively with the required productisation and
customisation wherever needed.

• Public Private Partnerships would be preferred wherever

feasible to implement e-Governance projects with
adequate management and strategic control.
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 • Adoption of Unique ID would be promoted to facilitate
identi cation, authentication and delivery of bene ts.

• Restructuring of NIC would be undertaken to strengthen

the IT Support to all government departments at the
Centre and State levels.
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 INFOCUS:

1. DigiLocker: DigiLocker is a agship initiative of Ministry of

Electronics and IT (MeitY) under Digital India programme.
DigiLocker aims at ‘Digital Empowerment’ of citizen by
providing access to authentic digital documents to citizen’s
digital document wallet. The indues 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 noti ed on February 8, 2017 vide G.S.R.711(E).

Bene ts to citizens:
I. Important Documents Anytime, Anywhere
II. Authentic Documents, Legally at Par with Originals.
III. Digital Document Exchange with the consent of the citizen.
IV. F a s t e r s e r v i c e D e l i v e r y - G o v e r n m e n t B e n e t s ,
Employment, Financial Inclusion, Education, Health.

Bene ts to Agencies:
I. Reduced Administrative Overhead: Aimed at the concept of
paperless governance. It reduces the administrative
overhead by minimising the use of paper and curtailing the
veri cation process.
II. Digital Transformation: Provides trusted issued documents.
Issued Documents available via DigiLocker are fetched in
real-time directly from the issuing agency.
III. Secure Document Gateway: Acts as a secure document
exchange platform like payment gateway between trusted
issuer and trusted Requester/Veri er with the consent of
the citizen.
IV. Real Time Veri cation: Provide a veri cation module
enabling government agencies to verify data directly from
issuers after obtaining user consent.
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 2. Government-e-Marketplace (GeM):
Hon’ble Prime Minister, based on recommendations of the
Group of Secretaries, decided to set up a dedicated e-market
for different goods and services procured by Government
Organisations/Departments/PSUs. This meant transforming
DGS&D to a digital e-Commerce portal for procurement and
selling of various goods and services.

Government-e-Marketplace (GeM), creates in a record time of

ve months, facilitates online procurement of common use
Goods & Services required by various Government
Departments/Organisations/PSUs. GeM aims to enhance
transparency, ef ciency and speed in public procurement. It
provides the tools of e-bidding, reverse e-auction and demand
aggregation to facilitate the government users, achieve the
best value for money.

Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961, vide

noti cation dated 8th December 2017 has made the following
value for their money.

32. Development, operation and maintenance of National

Public Procurement Portal-Government-e-Marketplace.

The purchases through GeM by Government users have been

authorised and made mandatory by Ministry of Finance by
adding a new Rule No. 149 in the General Financial Rules,
2017.
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3. DigiDhan:
Government of India is making efforts for promoting a less
cash economy and to provide the facility of seamless digital
payment to all citizens of India in a convenient manner.

Hon’ble Finance Minister in his Budget Speech of FY 2017-18,

announced a target of 2,500 crore digital transaction for
2017-18 and had announced that a dedicated Mission shall be
set up for this purpose.

In pursuance of this vision, ‘Digidhan Mission’ has been set

under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
(MeitY), with an objective to achieve the target of 2500 crore
digital payments in the nancial year 2017-18 and to enable
digital payment infrastructure throughout the country.

To monitor the growth of digital payments, MeitY has

developed “Digidhan Dashboard”, a platform for accurate
reporting, monitoring and analysis of all digital payments
transactions occurring in the country and enablement of
infrastructure through deployment of Physical/Mobile/BHIM
Aadhar PoS devices. It will help in tracking the growth of
digital payment transactions in the country and will provide
inputs for effective planning of digital payment promotional
activities.

The Dashboard includes data of various modes of digital

payment transactions. It provides two levels of access.
General access provides details of growth of digital payment
and related infrastructure. Privileged access is given to the
stakeholders to review their performance for better
implementation and promotion of digital payments.
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4. Digital India
e-Governance initiatives 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 computerisation, 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.

Though these e-governance projects were citizen-centric, they

could make less than the desired impact due to their limited
features. The isolated and less interactive systems revealed
major gaps that were thwarting the successful adoption of e-
governance along the entire spectrum of governance. They
clearly pointed towards the need for a more comprehensive
planning and implementation for the infrastructure required to
be put in place, interoperability issues to be addressed etc., to
establish a more connected government.