Government’s Digital initiatives

The Digital India campaign was launched by the government of India to make sure that services of the government are made available to all the citizens electronically. The goal is attained by building up online infrastructure, improving internet connectivity and making India overall a digitally strengthened country in terms of technology. The main objectives of the scheme include universal digital literacy, making government services available digitally, bringing big investments in technology, creating a transparent and responsive government and developing a secure and stable digital environment.

Government’s Digital initiatives

1. E Gram Panchayat

• The Indian government started an e-administration known as ePanchayat to streamline and improve inward government activities to improve governance quality

2. Kisan Suvidha

• The Indian government created the portal Kisan Suvidha to provide farmers with timely and accurate information
• It conveys to farmers definite information on climate, market costs, seeds, composts, pesticides, agribusiness apparatus, vendors, agro warnings, plant insurance, and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) rehearses
• It makes them aware of extreme climate conditions alongside changes in market cost

3. DigiLocker

• DigiLocker is public cloud-based storage. The service was launched to store crucial documents like driving licences, PAN cards, BPL cards, educational certificates, etc in the cloud
• The records are carefully confirmed and endorsed with a genuine mark of DigiLocker checkmark
• It plans to give residents’ Digital Empowerment’ by granting access to authentic digital documents to citizens’ digital document wallets

Objectives of DigiLocker 

• Enable residents’ digital empowerment by providing them with a cloud-based digital locker
• Enable e-signing of documents and make them available electronically and online
• Reduce the use of physical documents
• Ensure the authenticity of e-documents and, as a result, eliminate the use of fake documents
• Residents can gain secure access to government-issued documents via a web portal and mobile application
• Reduce the administrative overhead of government departments and agencies while making it easier for residents to receive services
• The resident has access to the documents at any time and from any location
• Open and interoperable standards-based architecture to support a well-structured standard document format for easy document sharing across departments and agencies
• Ensure that residents’ data is kept private and only authorised people have the access to it

 Components of DigiLocker 

• Repository: A repository is a collection of e-Documents uploaded in a standard format by issuers and exposes a set of standard APIs for secure real-time search and access
• Access Gateway: Using e-Document URIs, Access Gateway provides a secure online mechanism for requesters to access e-documents from various repositories in real-time (Uniform Resource Indicator). The URI is a link to an e-Document that an issuer has uploaded to a repository
• Retrieval: Based on the URI, the gateway will determine the repository’s address where the e-Document is stored and will retrieve the e-Document from that repository

4. MeghRaj

• Its prime objective is to accelerate the delivery of e-services in the country while optimising the government’s ICT spending
• MeghRaj will ensure optimal infrastructure utilisation and accelerate the development and deployment of eGov application.

5. PM WANI (Wi-Fi Access Network Interface):

• It is a plan to increase Wi-Fi access across the country
• It will implement a large-scale deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots across the country to increase connectivity options and improve digital access
• PM-WANI has distinguished itself from the past in two areas: regulation and technology
• PM-WANI has deregulated bandwidth resale. Until now, only licensed players have been able to become Internet Service Providers and resell bandwidth. Because of the inherent network effects of investing in network infrastructure, the top five ISPs now control 75% of all wired subscribers
• PM-WANI allows anyone, including Kirana shop owners, tea stall vendors, and Common Service Centres, to resell internet to their customers without a licence or fees! They can connect to the PM-WANI network and begin selling connectivity by installing a wireless router
• In a deliberate nod to the Public Call Offices of yesteryear, these small vendors will be known as Public Data Offices (PDOs). PCOs grew into economic hubs, supplying small businesses with a steady stream of customers to whom they could then sell other sachet-sized products
• Because of this deregulation, the distribution of PM-WANI endpoints will be decided by entrepreneurs rather than top-down. That means that members of the communities themselves will resolve the communities’ connectivity issues

Conclusion 

In a largely populated country like India with almost 1.4 billion people reducing corruption is next to difficult, but not impossible. With this aim, the prime minister, Mr Narendra Modi, started an initiative called Digital India with a promising vision to digitalise the country. With the introduction of services like e-sign, e-education, e-health, the initiative strives to reduce the role of middlemen and thereby reduce corruption.