The Digital India programme was launched last year by the Modi Government. The thrust of the programme is on 3 key areas – providing digital infrastructure to every citizen of the country through high speed data internet connection, using e-governance for promoting ease of doing business and digital empowerment of citizens.

These days a Digital India wave is gaining ground. Many new initiatives are being launched as the government embarks on a path to make India a digitally empowered nation. There has been a historic development in the education sector with the KVS launching the KV Shaala Darpan programme. The programme would be providing parents a platform to gather all the school-specific information about their children. It would also facilitate seamless integration of teaching expertise and the Internet by offering e-tutorials and learning aids to expand the children’s knowledge base. E-governance is getting prominence across the states. Orissa recently stated that it would be sourcing its hardware by adhering to a proper IT procurement policy which would be released soon. The launch of a mobile-governance app is also on the cards. Uttar Pradesh has made its way to the top ranks in e-governance. According to an article on NDTV, 37 million e-transactions were conducted for 26 citizen-centric services last year through the State portal. The state conducts about 300 video conferences annually which is the highest across India. This has enabled the government to cut down on expenses and register savings of about 36 crore. The Pune Municipal Corporation has also joined the Digital India wave by launching an e-governance project to computerise all its departments and facilitate administrative work.

E-governance involves application of information technology for government services. It has a lot of advantages over the traditional methodology. It brings in accountability and transparency, increases the communication speed and cuts down costs significantly by reducing paper work. The objective is to increase government-citizen interaction. As a result, many State governments are indulging in activities to promote e-governance. C1 India is proud to have offered its services to the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat and the Sultanate of Oman in introducing e-governance in their government departments.

The digital India wave is set to maintain its stronghold. A slew of initiatives are set to be unfolded in July with the celebration of a Digital India Week. If all these programmes are executed with efficiency, we can expect a digitally empowered India in the future.

By 2019, through the Digital India Programme, India dreams of providing broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh villages across the country, targeting net zero imports, bringing wifi access to 2.5 lakh schools, facilitating e-governance and e-Services across Government departments and creating 1.7 crore direct jobs apart from 8.5 crore indirect ones. In this regard, a lot still remains to be achieved. A programme as extravagant in scale as this has never been executed. A lot of human resource issues need to be addressed. Poor internet penetration in rural India still remains a big hurdle. In order to chase our dream, we must ensure the rural sector is not ignored as India progresses digitally.