On Wednesday, Narendra Modi launched “Digital India Week”, with the glittering showmanship for which he is now well-known. The two-hour event, held in Delhi's Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium and with the India Inc’s biggest names present, saw Modi launch a number of projects as part of his government’s “Digital India” programme. Investments worth Rs 4.5 lakh crore, which could potentially add 1.8 million jobs, were announced.
In the words of the government, the Digit Digital programme aims “to transform India into digitally empowered society and knowledge economy”.
Government-speak aside, the programme essentially aims to offer Indians better electronic connectivity, boost public e-services and push high-tech industry. Digital India functions via eight main channels. Here’s a quick look at what they are and the challenges for each.
Broadband infrastructure
India has abysmal fixed line broadband numbers: The total number of broadband-enabled households is a little above 1.5 crore – which comes out to a penetration rate of 5%.
The government intends to fix this and have 2.5 lakh village panchayats connected by the end of next year. The National Information Infrastructure project will also integrate and ramp up networks and data centres for use by the government.
This looks great on paper and is certainly the need of the hour but the government has released few details of its delivery mechanisms. Currently, public sector service providers such as BSNL and MTNL can barely provide connectivity in the metros. How will this be ramped up to 2.5 lakh village panchayats? Even if lines are laid down, how will service quality be maintained?
Without a minimum level of service, India’s rural areas will simply leapfrog over legacy broadband and head to mobile for internet connectivity – which is more expensive but at least it will work.
Universal mobile connectivity
Unlike fixed lines, India has done very well with mobile. It has more than 84 crore mobile users and approximately a fourth of those – 21 crore – access the internet on their devices. This means for every fixed-line broadband user, India has 14 mobile internet users.
In all this sunshine, though, there are some spots of shade. More than 42 thousand villages exist without a mobile network – something the Department of Telecom will aim to mend at a cost of Rs 16,000 crore.
This might be an easy fix but the bigger issue for India here is quality, especially with mobile internet where speeds are glacial and data prices high for India’s income levels.
Public internet access
An old Congress-era drive which the Modi government is attempting to speed up. It involves setting up government-run internet centres and using post offices to deliver e-services.
Given that for many low-income Indians, computing devices would be out of reach, these centres should fill in a crucial gap, allowing everyone to bridge the digital divide.
The biggest hurdle here is an extremely basic one: power. So much of India receives so little electricity that even if these centres are set up, they might be of little use, if they only run for, say, one hour in the morning at a time when the farmer is out working his fields.
e-Governance
An old buzzword – or at least it was till Chandrababu Naidu went overboard with it and crashed to a defeat in the 2004 Andhra Pradesh assembly elections.
India has hundreds of e-governance projects, which have achieved varying degrees of success. The Modi government here attempts to lay down some broad guidelines to provide structure. The aims of this initiative would be
1) To simplify and reduce forms – no more triplicates.
2) Online tracking to increase accountability for government services.
3) Digitise government documents: this programme, named “digital locker” was launched on Wednesday.
4) Integrate the Aadhar number as standard online identification: if you’ve been postponing applying for an Aadhar card, it’s soon going to become very important.
In addition to this, a subsection of e-governance projects, clubbed under the name e-Kranti, will be put on the fast track and rolled out on a national scale. Three notable initiatives under this are e-learning, e-healthcare and farmer training.
Information for all
The government will move all of its communication online. Documents will be hosted on the cloud and social media will be used as a communication tool.
The government has already moved well on this step, with the citizen portal MyGov.in up and running and Modi and his ministers already sharp communicators on Twitter.
The challenge here would be to scale this down to the grassroots, dealing with multiple levels of government. While Union cabinet ministers might be communicating online, is your local municipal corporator? And how many land records has your state government digitised?
Electronics manufacturing
The intersection of two of Modi’s pet initiatives, the Make in India programme and Digital India, the target here is to achieve "net zero imports" in electronics by 2020: a rather high bar.
Incentives would be offered for manufacturers and incubators and cluster would be set up for startups. The government would also procure locally.
There’s a long way to go to achieve this, though. Right now, India imports 65% of its current demand for electronic products, with its electronics import bill for 2013-'14 coming up to $31 billion. After petroleum products and gold, India spends the most on importing electronic items.
This initiative, in a way, has an important foreign policy facet, since most of our electronics come from China with which India had a trade deficit of $36 billion in 2013-'14 – a number that Modi would be keen on seeing grow smaller.
IT jobs
India’s much-vaunted information technology and business process outsourcing revolution, in reality, covers only a small part of the country – it is confined to the large metros.
This initiative attempts to take this industry to India’s small towns and villages. One crore students will be trained for IT jobs, while BPOs will be set up in every North Eastern state.
Early harvest programmes
A disparate range of programmes, which have one thing in common: they’re quick wins.
These cover basics such as biometric attendance, public Wi-Fi hot spots, government email and, somewhat quirkily, a government e-greeting portal.
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In the words of the government, the Digit Digital programme aims “to transform India into digitally empowered society and knowledge economy”.
Products & services unveiled by PM Shri. @narendramodi at #DigitalIndiaWeek launch event. RT #DigitalIndia @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/HKQ1IsJaST
— Digital India (@_DigitalIndia) July 2, 2015 Government-speak aside, the programme essentially aims to offer Indians better electronic connectivity, boost public e-services and push high-tech industry. Digital India functions via eight main channels. Here’s a quick look at what they are and the challenges for each.
Broadband infrastructure
India has abysmal fixed line broadband numbers: The total number of broadband-enabled households is a little above 1.5 crore – which comes out to a penetration rate of 5%.
The government intends to fix this and have 2.5 lakh village panchayats connected by the end of next year. The National Information Infrastructure project will also integrate and ramp up networks and data centres for use by the government.
This looks great on paper and is certainly the need of the hour but the government has released few details of its delivery mechanisms. Currently, public sector service providers such as BSNL and MTNL can barely provide connectivity in the metros. How will this be ramped up to 2.5 lakh village panchayats? Even if lines are laid down, how will service quality be maintained?
Without a minimum level of service, India’s rural areas will simply leapfrog over legacy broadband and head to mobile for internet connectivity – which is more expensive but at least it will work.
Universal mobile connectivity
Unlike fixed lines, India has done very well with mobile. It has more than 84 crore mobile users and approximately a fourth of those – 21 crore – access the internet on their devices. This means for every fixed-line broadband user, India has 14 mobile internet users.
In all this sunshine, though, there are some spots of shade. More than 42 thousand villages exist without a mobile network – something the Department of Telecom will aim to mend at a cost of Rs 16,000 crore.
This might be an easy fix but the bigger issue for India here is quality, especially with mobile internet where speeds are glacial and data prices high for India’s income levels.
Public internet access
An old Congress-era drive which the Modi government is attempting to speed up. It involves setting up government-run internet centres and using post offices to deliver e-services.
Given that for many low-income Indians, computing devices would be out of reach, these centres should fill in a crucial gap, allowing everyone to bridge the digital divide.
The biggest hurdle here is an extremely basic one: power. So much of India receives so little electricity that even if these centres are set up, they might be of little use, if they only run for, say, one hour in the morning at a time when the farmer is out working his fields.
e-Governance
An old buzzword – or at least it was till Chandrababu Naidu went overboard with it and crashed to a defeat in the 2004 Andhra Pradesh assembly elections.
India has hundreds of e-governance projects, which have achieved varying degrees of success. The Modi government here attempts to lay down some broad guidelines to provide structure. The aims of this initiative would be
1) To simplify and reduce forms – no more triplicates.
2) Online tracking to increase accountability for government services.
3) Digitise government documents: this programme, named “digital locker” was launched on Wednesday.
4) Integrate the Aadhar number as standard online identification: if you’ve been postponing applying for an Aadhar card, it’s soon going to become very important.
Save your important documents in a Digital Locker. Here are the 5 easy steps to use Digital Locker. #DigitalIndia pic.twitter.com/fmmhrxMp1P
— Yuva TV (@YuvaiTV) July 2, 2015In addition to this, a subsection of e-governance projects, clubbed under the name e-Kranti, will be put on the fast track and rolled out on a national scale. Three notable initiatives under this are e-learning, e-healthcare and farmer training.
Information for all
The government will move all of its communication online. Documents will be hosted on the cloud and social media will be used as a communication tool.
The government has already moved well on this step, with the citizen portal MyGov.in up and running and Modi and his ministers already sharp communicators on Twitter.
The challenge here would be to scale this down to the grassroots, dealing with multiple levels of government. While Union cabinet ministers might be communicating online, is your local municipal corporator? And how many land records has your state government digitised?
Electronics manufacturing
The intersection of two of Modi’s pet initiatives, the Make in India programme and Digital India, the target here is to achieve "net zero imports" in electronics by 2020: a rather high bar.
Incentives would be offered for manufacturers and incubators and cluster would be set up for startups. The government would also procure locally.
There’s a long way to go to achieve this, though. Right now, India imports 65% of its current demand for electronic products, with its electronics import bill for 2013-'14 coming up to $31 billion. After petroleum products and gold, India spends the most on importing electronic items.
This initiative, in a way, has an important foreign policy facet, since most of our electronics come from China with which India had a trade deficit of $36 billion in 2013-'14 – a number that Modi would be keen on seeing grow smaller.
IT jobs
India’s much-vaunted information technology and business process outsourcing revolution, in reality, covers only a small part of the country – it is confined to the large metros.
This initiative attempts to take this industry to India’s small towns and villages. One crore students will be trained for IT jobs, while BPOs will be set up in every North Eastern state.
Early harvest programmes
A disparate range of programmes, which have one thing in common: they’re quick wins.
These cover basics such as biometric attendance, public Wi-Fi hot spots, government email and, somewhat quirkily, a government e-greeting portal.
