Government of India’s ambitious plan to digitize India has received wide appreciation from many sectors. Considering that 70% of Indians live in rural areas, it is pertinent of the government to have included Ministry of Rural Development in this ambitious project. The vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economyby evolving the rural areas is a welcome development. Ensuring government services to be available electronically will immensely benefit the citizens economically& transparently.
Mr Temsu, CSC, Operator, Chuchuyimlang was having a hectic day as people queued up to fill their NPSC examination form. On enquiry, he told me that since opening the CSC in 2013, hundreds of candidates have applied for SSC, NPSC and other such online Applications. Comparing this to the pre-CSC-era, these candidates would have spent an enormous amount of money, time and energy to visit the Directorates for the same work that was executed in a computer in less than 10 minutes. Delivering Infrastructure in the form of CSC as a Utility to the citizen is one of the many success that Digital India seek to achieve.One is compelled to say that we can foresee a not-so-distant future where one may not need to visit DC offices to make ST certificates. Individuals can fill online forms and upload relevant documents online and such services will be integrated with UIDAI, payment gateway and mobile platform.Business process re-engineering will be undertaken to improve processes and service delivery to the individual. Similarly other government services can be implemented in the same fashion.
Many individuals are not willing to work at remote locations. Many of such individual either don’t attend their Office or keep some proxy in-lieu of them. This has hampered the very basic of development and deployment of government schemes. The government’s plan to deploy Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System in all government offices will hugely benefit in transparent governance. A web based application software system will enable online recording of attendance and its viewing by the concerned stakeholders. Of course these talks have been going on for years and we are skeptical about this but realization of such a thing is imminent with the government’s plan to allocate Rs. 1,13,000/-crore and restructuring of various nodal agencies to implement the same.
Each individual element stands out, but is also a part of the larger picture. Digital India is to be coordinated by DeitY and implemented by the entire Government. The implementing agency, the government and most importantly the citizens have their own major roles to play and no entity can function without the other. We have to understand that the entire process requires the entire system to work in sync. Yes the government may come up with various schemes, projects and services but to avail these services the citizen has to be made aware, has to be educated about the system of functioning of these services.
Despite the vast and significant advancement of the IT sector in India, many in the rural areas still continue to be denied access to Information and Communications technology. The very aim of digitizing India is to bridge the digital divide between the rural and the urbans sectors of our diverse country; to give the growing young population a platform to stand on and stand out.
The Digital world is a great platform to work together and build a better world, but it also has its dark side. The establishment of Digital Communication causes degradation of the environment in some cases. “Electronic waste or “eWaste” is an example. Cyber crimes like identity theft, cyber stalking, spreading malware, hacking websites, child pornography etc., are on the rise because of the misuse of the technological tools available for our use. Every year billions of dollars are made in a number of different cyber crimes, and the victims are usually people like you and me. These disadvantages are only the tip of the ice. The scopes and visions of “Digital India” bring with it the chances of misuse and therefore there is a great need to educate the masses on the pros and cons that these technologies can bring about and how to keep oneself safe and secure both online and offline.
Such an ambitious project for digitization by the Central government will fail if the local bodies are not taken into confidence. The government may provide the digital infrastructure such as high speed Internet, electronics products, digital resources in web and mobile platform but if basic necessity such as electricity is not available 24x7, this mega-plan will be another project in paper only. Similarly, we cannot remain uninformed and mi-informed, both equally dangerous. We cannot definitely afford to miss this bus of opportunity.
“Almost every successful work begins with two beliefs; the future can be better than the present, and we have the power to make it so”.
