Digital India

The Digital India Week is set to launch ‘Digital India’, a nation wide flagship program of Governance of India, which aims to “transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy” centered on three key vision areas of “Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen”, “Governance and Services on Demand” and “Digital Empowerment of Citizens”. India is the 2nd highest populated country in the world with a population of 1.2 Billion people.There are more than 6 Lakh villages where 70% population live in rural areas. With 36 States and Union Territories including 2,40,000 local bodies, the country is progressing at a massive rate.Considering the massive population and rapid growth of the country, the Government has been facing a huge challenge in addressing the needs of the people and is now set to use information technology as a tool to transform itself into a modern, efficient, easy, economic and effective Government. The term e-Governance is derived from the terms easy, efficient, economic, effective Governance by using electronic means and Information Technology as an enabler for bringing about this transformation within the Government. What is Digital India? Digital India is a Programme to prepare India for a knowledge future. The focus is on being transformative, the need to transform from old methods of Governance into new, modern, easy, efficient and economic system of Governance – to realize IT(Indian Talent) + IT(Information Technology) = IT(India Tomorrow)The focus is on making technology central to bring change. It is an Umbrella Programme – covering many departments. It weaves together a large number of ideas and thoughts into a single, comprehensive vision so that each of them is seen as part of a larger goal. It is coordinated by DeitY(Department of Electronics and Information Technology), implemented by the entire government – both at the Centre and State. The Digital Indian Programme: Pulls together many existing schemes. These schemes will be restructured and re-focused. They will be implemented in a synchronized manner. Many elements are only process improvements with minimal cost. The common branding of programmes as Digital India highlights their transformative impact. The Vision of Digital India focuses on on 3 Key Areas : 1. Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen • The Govt aims to provide High speed internet as a core utility • Cradle to grave digital identity, which means the Government will provide a unique, lifelong, online, authenticable identity to all its citizens • Mobile phone & Bank accounts which will empower the citizens to participate in digital & financial space • Easy access to a Common Service Centres(CSC’s). Nagaland already has 220 CSC run by Village Level Entrepreneurs(VLE’s) initiated by the Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Nagaland, across Nagaland providing basic Information Communication Technology services. • Provide digital lockers to the citizens where citizens will be able to upload their documents such as birth certificate, indigenous certificate, marksheets etc So that they no longer need to take photo copies every time they apply for any admissions, jobs, or Government services. • Provide Safe and secure Cyber-space which will be free from any hacking activities 2. Vision Area 2: Governance & Services On Demand • Through Digital India, all Departments or jurisdictions at the State and Central Government level will be connected and integrated • Services available in real time from online &mobile platform, so that citizens and Government departments can safe travel time, money and resources, thereby making Government services for public more easily accessible • All citizen documents to be available on the cloud(Cloud means internet) – citizen will not be required to provide photo copies etc. thereby making the lives of citizens more easy • Government Services will be transformed from old, manual process into Online for improving Ease of Doing Business and this will also help in improving transparency and reduce corruption • Making financial transactions electronic & cashless • Using technology such as Geographic Information System(GIS) for improving decision support systems, planning & development Vision Area 3: Digital Empowerment of Citizens 1. Universal Digital Literacy aims at educating all citizens on becoming e-literate or digitally literate 2. Universally accessible digital resources where people can easily access all kinds of information and services online 3. All documents/ certificates to be available on cloud(Internet) - No more carrying around photo copies of certificates because your photo copies can be directly accessed through the online Digital Locker 3. Availability of digital resources / services in Indian languages - All information and services will be available in several Indian languages 4. Collaborative digital platforms for participative governance - Engaging the citizens to provide ideas, solutions and feedbacks for building a participative governance 5. Portability of all entitlements through cloud(internet) - The Government is working on several programmes at a national and state level to provide all services to its citizens which will be hassle free and easily accessible. Digital revolution in India had initially started off in small silo projects with the pre-1990’s Railway Automation Project. The National e-Governance Plan(NeGP) with 27 Mission Mode Projects started off in 2006 which has also impacted our Nagaland state. One of the key highlights of the success of NeGP in Nagaland include the State Portal, State Service Delivery Gateway(SP/SSDG) project which has transformed manual citizen centric services into easy, efficient, online service such as the NPSC Online Forms, the NBSE Online Marksheet Verification, Higher Education and Technical Education Online scholarships. Other projects which have been successfully implemented in Nagaland by the Department of Information Technology and Communications through the National e-Governance Plan(NeGP) include the State Wide Area Network(SWAN), State Data Center(SDC) and the Common Service Centers(CSC’s). Now that the backbone for digital revolution is set, the time has come for India to welcome the digital revolution to transform India into a digitally empowered, knowledge led economy. This article is published by NIELIT Kohima as a part of the Digital India Week. Content provided by : NIELIT Kohima Media cell and Dept of Information Technology & Communication, Govt of Nagaland.