(a): The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India launched the ‘Digital India’ programme with the vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge-based economy by ensuring digital access, digital inclusion, digital empowerment and bridging the digital divide. In summary, our mission is to ensure that the digital technologies improve the life of every citizen; expand India’s digital economy, create employment and global digital technological capabilities in the country.
Digital India is an umbrella programme that covers multiple projects of various Central Ministries/Departments and States/UTs. The Digital India programme is centred on three key vision areas namely Digital Infrastructure as a Core Utility to Every Citizen, Governance and Services on Demand and Digital Empowerment of Citizens. Digital India has dramatically reduced distance between Government and citizens significantly. Further, Digital India has also helped in delivery of substantial services directly to the beneficiary in a transparent and corruption free manner. The status of some of the key initiatives undertaken by MeitY under Digital India programme across the country including Maharashtra is at Annexure.
(b) to (d): Basic Communication/Internet facility is being provided in rural & remote areas by the Government, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) through a mix of wireless and wireline internet services. As per data provided by Telecom Service Providers and field units of Department of Telecommunications, it is estimated that out of 5,97,618 inhabited villages (as per Census 2011) in the country, a total number of 5,72,551 villages have mobile wireless coverage. In Maharashtra, out of 40,959 inhabited villages (as per Census 2011), 38,631 numbers of villages have mobile coverage. Mobile wireless coverage in the remaining villages is provided by the Government and Telecom Service Providers in a phased manner.
Further, in its endeavour to provide high speed internet/broadband connectivity to villages and rural Indians, BharatNet project is envisaged in all the Gram Panchayats (GPs) and villages of the country. As on 31.12.2021, a total number of 1,69,244 Gram Panchayats have been made service ready with broadband infrastructure including 21,765 in Maharashtra.
(e) to (h):BharatNet is being implemented by Department of Telecommunications to provide high speed internet/broadband connectivity to 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats (GPs) of the country. So far, 63,100 Schools have been provided Fibre to the Home (FTTH) connections through BharatNet
********
ANNEXURE
Annexure referred to in Part (a) of the Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1168 for answer on 09.02.2022 regarding “Status of Digital India”.
The present status of some of the key initiatives undertaken by MeitY under Digital India programme across the country including Maharashtra is as follows:
• Aadhaar: Aadhaar provides 12 digit biometric and demographic based identity that is unique, lifelong, online and authenticable. Further to give statutory backing to Aadhaar ‘The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016’ was notified on 26th March 2016. Over 132 + crore residents have been enrolled.
• Common Services Centre (CSC): The Common Services Centres project aims to set-up at least one CSC at 2.50 lakh Gram Panchayats(GPs) across the country, for delivery of various Government to Citizen(G2C) and other citizen centric e-Services. It is a self-sustainable entrepreneurship model which is run by Village level Entrepreneurs (VLEs). As on Dec 2021, total 4.47 lakh CSCs are functional (Urban + Rural), out of which, 3.48 lakh CSCs are functional at GP level.
• Digital locker: Digital Locker provides an ecosystem with collection of repositories and gateways for issuers to upload the documents in the digital repositories. So far, more than 9.23 crore registered user of DigiLocker. 486 crore authentic documents have been issued. 1695 Issuers and 349 Requestor organizations have been on-boarded.
• Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance (UMANG): UMANG has been developed as a single mobile platform to deliver major Government services. Currently, 1,417 Services from 279 Central/ State Government department/ agencies of 33 States along with 20,527 services of Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) Utility services have been on-boarded on UMANG.
• e-Sign: e-Sign service facilitates instant signing of forms/documents online by citizens in a legally acceptable form. The services are being leveraged by various applications using OTP based authentication services of UIDAI. Total e-sign issued are 23.72 Crore and over 4.45 Crore e-Sign issued by CDAC.
• MyGov: MyGov is a first-of-its-kind citizen engagement platform for participatory governance in India. MyGov aims to facilitate a dialogue between citizens and Government, bringing citizens closer to the Government and bringing the Government closer to the citizens it serves, via this platform. Presently, over 2.25+ crore users are registered with MyGov, participating in various activities hosted on MyGov platform.
• Digital Village: MeitY has also initiated the ’Digital Village Pilot Project” in October, 2018. 700 Gram Panchayats (GPs)/Village with atleast one Gram Panchayat/Village per District per State/UT are being covered under the project. The digital services being offered are Digital Health Services, Education Service, Financial Services, Skill Development, Solar panel powered street lights including Government to Citizens Services (G2C), Business to Citizen (B2C) Services.
• National Rollout of eDistrict MMP: e-District is a Mission Mode Project (MMP) that aims at electronic delivery of identified high volume citizen centric services at the district or sub-district level. Total 3,916 e-District services have been launched in 709 districts across 28 States/ 6 UTs.
• Open Govt. Data Platform: Open Government Data (OGD) Platform is a platform for supporting Open Data initiative of Government of India. It intends to increase transparency in the functioning of Government and also open avenues for many more innovative usages of Government Data to give different perspective. Currently, OGD platform have 5,26,805 resources with 428 CDOs of 243 Departments, designed 12,064 catalogs, 2,599 visualization & developed 1,29,396 APIs.
• eHospital/ Online Registration System (ORS): e-Hospital application is the Hospital Management Information System for internal workflows and processes of hospitals. Online Registration System (ORS) as well as e-Hospital applications are hosted at NIC’s National Cloud. Currently, 631 Hospitals have been on-boarded on e-Hospital with over 23.38 crore e-Hospital transactions, and ORS has been adopted by 422 hospitals across the country with over 49 lakh appointments booked from ORS.
• JeevanPramaan: Digital Life Certificate for Pensioners scheme known as JeevanPramaan envisages to digitize the whole process of securing the life certificate. With this initiative, the pensioner is no more required to physically present himself or herself in front of disbursing agency or the certification authority. Over 557.63 lakh Digital Life certificates have been processed since 2014.
• NCOG-GIS Applications: National Centre of Geo-informatics (NCoG) project, is a GIS platform developed for sharing, collaboration, location based analytics and decision support system for Departments. So far, 605 applications across various domains are operational.
• National Knowledge Network: The Objective of the NKN is to inter-connect all knowledge institutions across the country through high speed data communication network to encourage sharing of resources and collaborative research. A high speed data communication network has been established to interconnect Institution of higher learning, and research. So far, 1752 links to Institutions have been commissioned and made operational. 522 NKN links have been connected to NIC district centers across India.
• Pradhan MantriGramin Digital SakshartaAbhiyaan (PMGDISHA): The Government has approved a new scheme titled “Pradhan MantriGramin Digital SakshartaAbhiyan (PMGDISHA)” to usher in digital literacy in rural India by covering 6 Crore rural households (one person per household). So far, training has been imparted to 4.68 crore candidates and out of this more than 3.48 crore candidates have been certified. The scheme is applicable to all rural areas of the country.
• Unified Payment Interface (UPI): UPI is a leading digital payment platform. It powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience. 229 Banks are providing UPI Services.
• FutureSkills Prime: MeitY in collaboration with NASSCOM has initiated a programme titled FutureSkills PRIME. The programme is aimed at re-skilling/ up-skilling of IT professionals in 10 new/emerging technologies which include Augmented/Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Additive Manufacturing/ 3D Printing, Cloud Computing, Social & Mobile, Cyber Security and Blockchain.
• Cyber Security: Matters relating to Cyber Laws, administration of the Information Technology Act. 2000 (21 of 2000) (IT Act, 2000) and other IT related laws" comes under the purview of MeitY. While administering the parent IT Act, 2000, MeitY has the specific responsibility to ensure-better internet governance, data protection, cyber security, privacy over the Internet, promotion and regulation of technology companies and promotion of e-governance. India has made it to the top 10 in Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) 2020 launched by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on June 29, 2021, moving up 37 places to rank as the tenth best country in the world on key cybersafety parameters.
• BPO Promotion Scheme: The India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) and North East BPO Promotion Scheme (NEBPS) were initiated under Digital India Programme to create employment opportunities for the youth of the country by setting up BPO/ITES operation in smaller cities across the country and North Eastern Region. The BPO Promotion Schemes aimed at incentivising establishment of total 53,300 seats in respect for BPO/ITES operation across the country. Overall, 61,208 seats were allocated to eligible entities to setup BPO/ITES operation under these schemes.
• Electronics Manufacturing
o Modified Special Incentive Package (M-SIPS): As on date, 308 applications with proposed investment of approximately Rs. 83,958 crore have been approved.
o Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMC): Under EMC scheme, 19 Greenfield EMCs and 3 Common Facility Centres (CFCs) measuring an area of 3,464 acres with project cost of Rs. 3,762 crore including Government Grant-in-aid of Rs. 1,538 crore have been approved in 15 states across the country. Based on closure of receipt of applications under EMC scheme, MeitY notified Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC 2.0) Scheme on 1st April, 2020 for further strengthening the infrastructure base for electronics industry in the country and deepening the electronics value chain. As of now, 2 applications for setting up of EMC over an area of 1,040 acres with project cost of Rs. 1,410 crore including Central financial assistance ofRs. 681.04 crore have been approved.
********
Download PDF Files
