Narendra Modi, Prime Mininister of India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the “Digital India Week”in New Delhi as part of the larger initiative to empower the people and extend services better with the use of information technology and its tools.
With this launch, the dream of being an empowered technology-driven economy has come one step closer to reality. Digital India is no longer an initiative by the Government; it has evolved into a revolution, a movement. Digital India is all about advancements in technology and connectivity which will make an impact on all aspects of governance and improve the quality of life of citizens.
The key speakers in this Digital India Week were Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of IT; Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance; Shri Jual Oram, Minister of Tribal Affairs; Ms Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Commerce & Industry; Shri R. S. Sharma, Secretary – IT; Shri Rakesh Garg, Secretary – Telecom, besides other industry stalwarts that included Tata Sons’ Chairman Cyrus P. Mistry; Shri Anil Agarwal, Chairman, Sterlite Technologies; Shri Mukesh Ambani, CMD, Reliance Industries; Shri Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance ADAG; Shri Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman & Group CEO, Bharti Enterprises; Dr Bernhard Gerwert, CEO, Airbus Defence & Space; Shri Kumaramangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group; Mr Ping Cheng, CEO, Delta Electronics; Shri Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro; Shri Hari Om Rai, Chairman & MD, LAVA International; Shri Pawan Munjal, Chairman, Hero Group; and Mr Mikio Katayama, Vice-Chairman, Nidec, who shared their vision and commitment on Digital India.
Lava, Delta, Hero and Nidec have announced about their manufacturing plans in India.
The Prime Minister also unveiled a logo for Digital India, an umbrella programme that seeks to transform India into a digitally-empowered, knowledge economy with a host of initiatives for a synchronized and coordinated engagement of the Government and its agencies. All the existing and ongoing e-governance initiatives have been revamped to align them with the principles of Digital India.
Several initiatives have been taken for introduction of Information Technology to empower people. Some of the initiatives have resulted in the development of products to extend various services in areas relating to health, education, labour and employment, commerce, etc. Digital India has been envisioned as an ambitious umbrella programme to transform India into a digitally-empowered society and knowledge economy. It comprises of various initiatives under the single programme each targeted to prepare India for becoming a knowledge economy and for bringing good governance to citizens through synchronized and coordinated engagement of the entire Government.
The larger goal of Digital India includes broadband connectivity in all panchayats, Wi-Fi in all the schools and universities and public Wi-Fi hotspots in all important cities by 2019. It will be deployed in delivering services in areas like health, education, agriculture and banking.
The vision is centred on three key areas:
– Digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen
– Governance and service on demand
– Digital empowerment of citizens
Visions of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi:
“E-governance is going to change into m-governance (not to be mistaken as Modi Governance) – it is mobile governance. Mobile governance is going to become a reality soon,” he added.
“I dream of a Digital India where high-speed digital highways unite the nation. I dream of a digital India where government is open and governance is transparent.”
“I dream of a Digital India where 1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation. I dream of a Digital India where the world looks to India for the next innovation. I dream of a Digital India where ICT-enabled citizen-government interface is incorruptible,” he said.
We need to resolve that we’ll reduce our reliance on imports and protect the world from cyber warfare. The most important is clouds of a bloodless war (cyber warfare) are looming all over. Indian talent needs to come forward and assure that the world is protected. I invite start-ups to come forward and contribute to the nation’s growth. Shri Modi committed we will offer all possible support and technology will play a big role in realizing the dream of minimum government, maximum governance.
With the above vision, the Digital India programme aims to provide Broadband Highways, Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity, Public Internet Access Programme, E-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology, e-Kranti – Electronic Delivery of Services, Information for All, Electronics Manufacturing: Target Net Zero Imports, IT for Jobs and Early Harvest Programmes. Several projects/products have already been launched or are ready to be launched, as indicated below:
9 Pillars of Digital India
Digital Locker System aims to minimize the usage of physical documents and enable sharing of e-documents across agencies. The sharing of the e-documents will be done through registered repositories thereby ensuring the authenticity of the documents online.
MyGov.in has been implemented as a platform for citizen engagement in governance, through a “Discuss”, “Do” and “Disseminate” approach. The mobile App for MyGov would bring these features to users on a mobile phone.
Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Mobile app would be used by the people and government organizations for achieving the goals of Swachh Bharat Mission.
eSign framework would allow citizens to digitally sign a document online using Aadhaar authentication.
The Online Registration System (ORS) under the eHospital application has been introduced. This application provides important services such as online registration, payment of fees and appointment, online diagnostic reports, enquiring availability of blood online, etc.
National Scholarships Portal is a one-stop solution for end-to-end scholarship process right from submission of student application, verification, sanction and disbursal to end-beneficiary for all the scholarships provided by the Government of India.
DeitY has undertaken an initiative, namely Digitize India Platform (DIP) for large-scale digitization of records in the country that would facilitate efficient delivery of services to the citizens.
The Government of India has undertaken an initiative, namely Bharat Net, a high-speed Digital Highway to connect all 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of the country. This would be the world’s largest rural broadband connectivity project using optical fibre.
BSNL has introduced Next-Generation Network (NGN), to replace 30-year-old exchanges, which are an IP-based technology to manage all types of services like voice, data, multimedia/ video and other types of packet switched communication services.
BSNL has undertaken large-scale deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the country. The user can latch on the BSNL Wi-Fi network through their mobile devices.
To deliver citizen services electronically and improve the way citizens and authorities transact with each other, it is imperative to have ubiquitous connectivity. The Government also realizes this need as reflected by including “broadband highways” as one of the pillars of Digital India.
While connectivity is one criterion, enabling and providing technologies to facilitate delivery of services to citizens forms the other.
Policy initiatives have also been undertaken by DeitY in the e-Governance domain like e-Kranti Framework, Policy on Adoption of Open-Source Software for Government of India, Framework for Adoption of Open-Source Software in e-Governance Systems, Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Government of India, E-mail Policy of the Government of India, Policy on Use of IT Resources of the Government of India, Policy on Collaborative Application Development by Opening the Source Code of Government Applications, Application Development & Re-Engineering Guidelines for Cloud Ready Applications.
BPO Policy has been approved to create BPO centres in different North-Eastern states and also in smaller / mofussil towns of other states.
Electronics Development Fund (EDF) Policy aims to promote Innovation, R&D, and Product Development and to create a resource pool of IP within the country to create a self-sustaining eco-system of Venture Funds.
The National Centre for Flexible Electronics (NCFlexE) is an initiative of the Government of India to promote research and innovation in the emerging area of Flexible Electronics.
The Centre of Excellence on Internet on Things (IoT) is a joint initiative of the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), ERNET and NASSCOM.
Digital India Week
The estimated impact of Digital India by 2019 would be cross cutting, ranging from broadband connectivity in all Panchayats, Wi-Fi in schools and universities and Public Wi-Fi hotspots. The programme will generate a huge number of IT, Telecom and Electronics jobs, both directly and indirectly. The success of this programme will make India digitally empowered and the leader in usage of IT in delivery of services related to various domains such as health, education, agriculture, banking, etc. Indian citizens can now connect their phone numbers with their Aadhaar authentication number for streamlined data verification. Going further, the Government is launching apps for Swachh Bharat Mission, PayGov and MyGov, and setting up National Centre for Flexible Electronics and National Institute for IoT (Internet of Things).
Cyrus Mistry
Cyrus Mistry, Chairman of Tata Group, addressing the session, expressed his views, “I congratulate PM for setting up Digital India to provide governance in real time and digitally- empowering citizens.” Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) planned to hire 60,000 IT professionals this year, and has partnered with the Government for various projects like Passport Seva and income tax e-filing, as well as state-level projects.
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries, said, “With Digital India, the Government has moved faster than the industry. He added that Reliance Jio Infocomm will invest Rs.2,50,000 crore as part of Digital India programme. The company will also roll out a best-in-class internet network.”
Azim Premji
Azim Premji, Wipro Chairman, said, “Digital India initiative will democratize the nation and “break down the digital divide in India and it is the first step towards empowering citizens with technology.” He added that the level of skills of India’s people will have to be significantly improved in order to make full use of the new initiative. Premji said India Today + Information Technology = India Tomorrow has become a staple mantra of IT firms.
Sunil Mittal
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman & Group CEO, Bharti Enterprises, said, “Digital India has power to transform the country in the shortest time, also digitally friendly. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the right man to lead the drive and he understands the power of technology and how it can transform the nation, connect the nation in the shortest time frame and Airtel will invest $16 billion to build deeper IT infrastructure to offer telecom services to Indian citizens in rural and urban parts of the country and will bring 4G for the masses.”
Kumarmangalam Birla
Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumarmangalam Birla said, “During the launch of Digital India, the company has invested over US$15 billion in the telecom industry, wherein we have laid 1 lakh kms of fibre,to further improve this digital infrastructure. We plan to invest an additional US$7 billion over the next five years in areas such as network rollout, broadband and Wi-Fi deployment. Idea plans to invest US$2 billion in the next five years in projects falling within the ambit of Digital India initiative such as electronics manufacturing, energy, Internet of Things and smart cities.”
Anil Ambani
Anil Ambani of Reliance Group said in his visionary speech, “The company will invest Rs.10,000 crore in tech projects as part of Digital India. The company’s investment in data centers will continue and upcoming five fully operational Cloud Xchange points that will help government departments access 240 times the amount of compute power currently available in government data centers, and over six times the high-speed storage currently available in India.”
Hari Om Rai
Hari Om Rai, Chairman & MD of Lava International, said that the products his company manufactures in India has lower failure rates compared to the ones it imports from China.
The Digital India vision will prove a game-changer for India. The entirety of the vision also dovetails aspects of other policies of the current government such as Smart Cities and Make in India. Clearly, the vision is not a short-term one and would require considerable investments in terms of manpower, technological upgradation, skilling, digital literacy and, most importantly, a plethora of standards to be laid out and adhered to, if we want the vision to be executed in a manner where the systems and processes emanating out of the execution of the vision, would be able to “talk” to each other, and that the cost of the execution of this vision, is lower than the benefit derived from it. Some of the components of Digital India, such as Digital Locker, is a first of its kind in the world and would have a deep impact on the society and the processes. We hope it would lead to a much easier interaction between the citizens and the government and would lead to a Digital Locker industry. Similarly, other components of the vision would lead to deep changes in the way we live, study and do business. Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, Partner, Cities & Digital Innovation, KPMG
The industry has come in full support and Digital India Week event and witnessed announcement of billions of dollars of investments in electronics manufacturing and Digital India and this programme is one of the most vital decisions by the Government and is aimed at creating and delivering large-scale welfare policies. The programme aims to transform India into an IT-enabled society. There is huge opportunity for IT players to use disruptive technologies to redefine paradigms for delivery of services like health, education and financial inclusion. IT will partner with the Government to restructure and refocus several existing schemes and implement in every best possible manner, said Deepak Kumar Sahu, Editor-in-Chief, VARINDIA
Talking about the initiative, R. Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM, said, “The ambitious plan of the Government being established in collaboration with the industry will create an inclusive ecosystem for budding entrepreneurs and organization to leverage new-age technologies and access to researchers, industry and other stakeholders. This Centre of Excellence will act as an innovation accelerator to explore product ideas and establish high-end technologies to support government initiatives using IoT in areas like water, energy, agriculture, crime, safety and health.”
Sharing his views, BVR Mohan Reddy, Chairman, NASSCOM, said, “The technology industry is rapidly moving towards convergence of software and hardware. And this phenomenon is leading to the development some of the innovative products and solutions that will change the way we look at the world. NASSCOM welcomes the government in this partnership of setting up this Centre of Excellence and firmly believes that such initiatives will lead India in the next phase of growth and excellence.”
The Government of Karnataka will be the partner state to set up the first 40-seater CoE facility in Bangalore which will be co-located with NASSCOM 10,000 start-ups warehouse. The Centre will be a testing facility for prototypes of concepts for horizontal and vertical solutions. Going forward, the initiative aims to create a cluster of 5 CoEs across India.
Oracle has been working tirelessly in the Indian public sector over the last two decades and on this momentous day, we are inspired and overwhelmed to see the exhilaration not just from the government but from the citizens of this nation as well. We congratulate the government on this milestone and want to assure the Prime Minister that Oracle is prepared to support his team to make India a force to reckon with.” – Vineet Kshirsagar, Senior Director & Head – Government Business, Oracle India.
Thanks to the initiative of the Government, which infuses confidence in the Industry by Digital India and Make in India are making strong inroads into the country. The Digital India Week starts from 1st July and will continue till 7th of the month and would showcase the Government’s focus on communication infrastructure and services, products, portals and mobile apps, research institutions and important government policies.