(a) whether the Government has formulated any policy that enable and nurture local digital talent and provide them level playing field to compete globally;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) whether India is able to improve digital infrastructure which is a major constituent in global growth; and
(d) if so, the details thereof and the steps taken in this regard?
(a) to (d): The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) is implementing the National Policy on Electronics and National Policy on Information Technology. Under these policies, the following programmes / schemes are being implemented for skilling, education, awareness and nurturing local talent in the field of electronics and information technology: -
I.) Creating skill development facilities through setting up of National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) Centers across the country.
In order to develop qualified human resources in the areas of IT; Electronics; Communication Technologies; MeitY has setup / is setting up Centres of National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT - an Autonomous Scientific Society under the Department) in the country. NIELIT offers courses both in the Formal as well as the Non Formal sector of education and is also one of the National Examination body which accredits institutes / organizations for the conduct of courses in IT in the Non Formal sector. MeitY is setting up/ upgrading NIELIT Centres at Srikakulam, Ladakh Region of Leh, Kolkata, Patna, Ranchi, Ajmer, Chennai, and Ropar.
MeitY is also implementing a project on “Development of North-Eastern Region by enhancing the Training/ Education capacity in the Information, Electronics & Communications Technology (IECT) Area”. Under this project action has been initiated for upgrading the six existing centres of the NIELIT in the North-Eastern Region at Guwahati, Imphal, Shillong, Itanagar, Gangtok and Aizwal. Also ten new Extension centres are being setup and two existing Extension centres are being upgraded.
II.) Scheme to give a thrust to Research in areas of Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) and IT/IT Enabled Services (ITES) [“Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme for Electronics and IT”] :
The objective of the above scheme is to generate 1500 PhDs for each of ESDM and IT/ITES sectors over a period of 5 years to promote innovation and development of new products in IT/ITES and ESDM sectors.
III.) Scheme of Financial Assistance for setting up of Electronics and ICT Academies
The objective of the above scheme is to set up seven (07) Electronics and ICT Academies as a unit in IITs, IIITs, NITs, etc., for faculty/mentor development/up gradation to improve the employability of the graduates/diploma holders in various streams, through active collaboration of States/UTs with financial assistance from the Central Government.
IV.) Two Schemes on Skill Development in ESDM sector have been approved:-
(a) Scheme for financial assistance to select States/UTs for Skill Development in ESDM sector
The Scheme has been approved with a target of skilling 90,000 candidates (in 5 levels) at a total outlay of Rs.113.77 crore with Grant-in-Aid support of Rs. 100.00 crore (approx.) in a period of 4 years. The Scheme is under implementation in Eight (08) states viz. Andhra Pradesh (jointly with Telangana with 50% targets each), Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala (for 3 levels only), Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh (for two levels only).
(b) Scheme for ‘Skill Development in ESDM for Digital India’
This expanded Scheme has been approved with a target of skilling 3.28 lakh candidates at a total outlay of Rs. 411 crore in a period of 4 years for implementation in 32 States/UTs.
Under the above two Schemes, an Expert Committee has approved a basket of 73 courses to be covered under both the schemes. So far under both the above Schemes, a total of 82,428 candidates have been enrolled for training in various states/UTs out of which 60,173 have been trained and 26,166 candidates have been certified.
V.) Efforts to generate greater participation of Industry through Sector Skill Councils – Electronics, Telecom, IT/ITeS
MeitY is actively associating and supporting the various skill development activities of the following Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) concerning the domains addressed by this Department:
i. Sector Skill Council: Electronics ii. Sector Skill Council: IT-ITeS iii. Sector Skill Council: Telecom
iv. Sector Skill Council: Health (for Medical Electronics) v. Sector Skill Council: Automotive (for Automotive Electronics)
VI.) Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA) Project Phase-II
The project has been approved with an outlay of Rs. 96.08 crore to be implemented over a period of 5 years w.e.f. 01.4.2014. Under the ISEA Project Phase-II, 1.14 lakh persons are proposed to be trained under formal and non-formal courses, faculty training etc. In addition, about 400 Paper publications are expected. The project also aims to provide training to more than 13,000 Government officials and creating mass information security awareness targeted towards Academic users, Government users and General users (approximately 3 crore Internet users in five years through direct and indirect mode). 51 institutions have been identified for the implementation of academic activities under the project.
VII.) Special Manpower Development Program for Chips to Systems
The objective of the programme is to broaden the VLSI Design base in the country, generate specialized manpower in the area of VLSI and system level design, as well as to bring in a culture of System-on-Chip / System Designing which will ensure moving up in the value chain in the “System Design Space”.
VIII.) Digital Literacy Schemes
DeitY has approved the following two Schemes for providing Digital Literacy to the masses:
(i) Scheme for IT Mass Literacy (National Digital Literacy Mission):
(ii) Scheme for ‘Digital Saksharta Abhiyan’ (DISHA) under ‘Digital India’
Both the above Schemes are being implemented concurrently. So far, under the NDLM/DISHA schemes a total 76.27 lakh candidates have been trained and approximately 37.78 lakh candidates have been certified. A total of 1953 Training Partners covering around 1.10 lakhs training Centres are involved under these schemes.
IX.) The Government of India has undertaken following steps to improve the digital infrastructure particularly in the villages, remote and backward areas:
a) National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN): The Government has approved, ''National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN)/BharatNet'', to establish network infrastructure to connect all the Gram Panchayats (2.5 lakh) in the country by laying incremental fibre to bridge the connectivity gap between Gram Panchayats and Blocks or through radio/satellite for providing broadband connectivity. It is being implemented through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL). Till June, 2016, 50,465 Gram Panchayats have been connected with Optical Fibre Cable (OFC).
b) Under Digital India programme, the Government has launched CSC 2.0 Scheme to set up at least one Common Service Centre (CSC) to cover all the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of the Country for delivery of various electronic services to citizens across rural India. This would include strengthening and integrating the existing 100,000 CSCs under the original CSC scheme and making operational an additional 1.5 lakh CSCs in Gram Panchayats. Till June, 2016 a total number of 1,22,793 CSCs have been rolled out at Gram Panchayat level.
c) National Knowledge Network (NKN) : The Government is implementing NKN, a PAN India project, intended to interconnect all institutions of higher learning and research with a high speed data communication network to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative research in the country. The connectivity is being provided to institutions across the country which includes the institutions located in the North East, backward and remote areas.
d) State Data Centers (SDCs): ICT infrastructure in states to consolidate infrastructure, applications and services to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. 25 SDCs have been made operational.
e) State Wide Area Networks (SWANs): To connect government offices / institutions at all State/UT Headquarters up to the Block level via District/ sub-Divisional Headquarters, in a vertical hierarchical structure with a minimum bandwidth capacity of 2 Mbps per link. Till date, SWANs in 34 states have been made operational. 30 states/UTs are utilizing more than 60% of bandwidth of the existing link capacity.
f) GI Cloud (MeghRaj): To utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing. National Cloud has been set up as a state-of-the-art secured government Cloud to provide services over the ICT Infrastructure to the government departments. More than 400 user Departments are already accessing services like Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), Storage as a Service (StaaS) of National Cloud.
g) Mobile Governance: The Mobile Seva platform delivers Government services over mobile devices using mobile applications installed on the user''s mobile handsets. About 2540 Government departments and agencies at central, state and local levels have been integrated with the Mobile Seva platform.
h) State Portal, State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG): The SSDG aims at creating a State Portal, secure middleware named as State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) and electronic forms for every state/UT to offer convenient and easy e-services to citizens. This project intends to provide easy, anywhere and anytime access to government services (both informational & transactional). 25 states/UTs have gone live with 719 services.
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