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(GIST OF KURUKSHETRA) Digital India: Towards a Connected Nation

[July-2021]

Introduction:

The launch of Digital India’ has opened a wide spectrum for societal transformation. Digital India aims to ensure that government services are available to electronically and public accountability is ensured through mandated delivery of government’s services electronically.
Digital India is playing a revolutionary role in connecting Indio by bridging the rural and urban India divide. Its vision is to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

Key objectives:

Governance and Services on Demand:

Digital India aims to integrate processes and information across departments and jurisdictions seamlessly so to help provide real-time services to citizens both on online and mobile platforms, digitally enable processes for businesses, creating a digitally enabled cashless economy and creating cloud-based repository for easy access for the citizens as well as better planning and decision-making with the help of GIS.

Digital Empowerment of Citizens:

The programme aims to provide digital literacy and digital services to all citizens through universally accessible digital resources and services in several Indian languages and introduction of collaborative digital platforms, availability of all documents and certificates online and availability of all entitlements through cloud.

Key initiative taken so far:

Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS)

Developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI), AEPS is a payment service based on an individual’s Aadhaar card (one can use Aadhar card instead of debit or credit cards) which enables the owner of the card to make financial transactions such as transfer funds, make payments, deposit cash, make withdrawals, etc.

National Mission in Education through ICT (NMEICT)

The NMEICT is a centrally-sponsored scheme which aims to leverage the potential of ICT in education through teaching and learning processes in institutions for higher education. Under the mission, the government aims to use ICT interventions to bolster enrolment rates in higher education by creating a proper balance between the right content, undertaking research in imparting education and other critical areas, and increasing connectivity among other nations to share our progress and exchange of ideas.
The aim of the mission is to accomplish these goals by creating and delivering valuable content through the content delivery portal Sakshat and, by avoiding recreating content that is already available online freely. The content is also aimed to be dispersed through EduSAT and Direct to home platforms.
NMEICT has a vision to service more than 50 crore working population with the opportunity for continuing education through interactive, personalised knowledge modules that suit the users needs and aspirations.

Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)

The PMJDY is a scheme under the National Mission on Financial Inclusion for the impoverished citizens of India. It provides access to services of financial nature at affordable rates to boost financial inclusivity and encourage savings. The services accessible under the PMJDY are savings accounts, loan services, pension, insurance, etc.
As on January 2021 a total number of 41 crore 75 lakh Jan Dhan bank accounts have been opened.

SMART Cities:

The Smart Cities Mission under the Digital India umbrella promotes conceptualisation and realisation of cities that have a strong basic infrastructure and promote sustainable, safe and inclusive development for its residents by availing clean, sustainable environment via application of ‘Smart’ solutions.
As part of the initiative 99 cities have been selected to address issues of pollution, increasing crime rates, congestions, poor living standards by creating better administrative and infrastructural systems through new technological. The Budget for the year 2019-2020 is estimated to be 6450 crore rupees.

E-Pathshala:

NCERT’s e-Pathshala is a platform to disseminate educational resources through mobile app and website. The platform offers educational resources, including NCERT textbooks for classes 1-12, audio-visual resources by NCERT, periodicals, supplements, teacher training modules and a variety of other print and non-print materials.

E-Prison:

This project envisions digitisation and integration of all activities that are related to prison and prisoner management for jails through an application suite.
The suite is developed by NIC as a cloud-based product designed to be a one-stop solution for citizens to digitally apply for visitation, note grievances, use a portal for buying goods created by prisoners, etc.
For the prison management system, the project aids in surveillance and management of prisoners, administrative tasks, resource optimisation, etc.

Farmer Portal:

The portal is designed to be a one-stop destination to gain relevant information related to
agriculture, risk management, animal husbandry, aquaculture, weather, programmes and schemes.

Khoya Paya:

Khoya Paya is an initiative under Digital India to engage citizens to inform and exchange information on children who are missing and found. The platform is developed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development along with the Department of Electronics and Information technology where citizens can report missing and found children with the help of texts, photos, videos, and other means through smart phones. The Khoya Paya portal can be linked to the CCTNS project to help apprehend criminals as well as solve cases of missing minors. In March last year, the Central government had announced that it had given its approval for the implementation of the Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS).

Kisan Suvidha:

The mobile application disseminates relevant information to farmers regarding weather, market prices, plant protection, inputs, weather alerts, go-downs and storages and
market-related information such as conducive markets, market rates, quantity demands, etc.
The NITI Aayog document on National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, envisions implementation of Al tools and big data analysis to bring more accurate information for supply and demand.

National Knowledge Network (NKN):

The NKN is a pan-India network with an aim to help in connecting India’s universities, libraries, labs, research institutes across the country to improve inter-communication, stimulate research and create next-gen apps and services. In addition, NKN encourages connectivity of research and education networks between India and SAARC nations.
It also facilitates collaboration between educational networks such as TEIN4, GARUDA, CERN and Internet to encourage exchange of scientific database and access to research facilities remotely.

Online Labs (OLABS)

OLABS is a virtual learning platform, created to help students conduct over 130 virtual lab practical to grasp concepts in Chemistry, Physics, Biology from class 9 to 12, and lessons in English and Maths for class 9 and 10. The experiments are a mix of interactive stimulations, animations and lab videos which can be accessed anywhere.
This platform is especially aimed at helping students who live in geographically hard to reach areas and who don’t have the infrastructure to support their on-hand learning. The content is wide-ranged, serving curriculums from CBSE and State Boards.

Project Monitoring Website for E-courts:

E-court’s project monitoring website has been created to aid courts with automated decision-making and decision-support system. It has been implemented across thousands of courts in metros, state capitals and district courts.
While the main objective of the project was to streamline administrative activities in courts, the e-Courts project policy action plan document also envisions a larger vision for the judicial system of India. In phase III, utilisation of technologies such as migration of information to cloud has already started. In addition, the other technological innovations planned to be used are big data mining, and processing through block-chain technology and artificial intelligence.

AADHAR:

It is world’s largest biometric-based identification system. Aadhar is one of the core
pillars of the Digital India mission. The unique identities issued under Aadhar is at the heart of social and financial inclusion, public services delivery, aiding to create better policies and reforms and creating a more transparent and automated governance for the people. This is possible through seamless integration of various databases along with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to aid facial recognition, voice enabled chatbots and cloud-based systems.