Prof. (Dr.) Sunil Kr Pandey Professor & Director (IT)

Institute of Technology & Science Mohan Nagar, Ghaziabad

Digital India Week (02nd July – 07th July, 2015)

Digital India Programme (DIP) • DIP aims to “transform India into a digitally empowered society and

knowledge economy”.

• It aims to make all citizens digitally literate and bring internet and e-governance to all sections of the society.

• The focus is on being transformative to realize IT (Indian Talent) + IT (Information Technology) = IT (India Tomorrow)

• The vision of Digital India programme aims at inclusive growth in areas of

electronic services, products, manufacturing and job opportunities etc.

• Focuses on three key vision areas of: – Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen – Governance and Services on Demand and – Digital Empowerment of Citizens

Projects and Policies of DIP 1) Digital Locker System

2) eSign framework would allow citizens to digitally sign a document online

using Aadhaar authentication.

3) National Scholarships Portal is a one stop solution for end to end

scholarship process right from submission of student application, verification, sanction and disbursal to end beneficiary for all the scholarships provided by the GoI.

4) BSNL has introduced Next Generation Network (NGN), to replace

30 year old exchanges, which is an IP based technology to manage all types of services like voice, data, multimedia/ video and other types of packet switched communication services.

5) Bharat Net, a high speed digital highway to connect all 2.5 lakh Gram

Panchayats of country. This would be the world’s largest rural broadband connectivity project using optical fibre.

6) BSNL has undertaken large scale deployment of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout

the country. The user can latch on the BSNL Wi-Fi network through their mobile devices.

7) Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Mobile app 8) The Online Registration System (ORS) under the eHospital application has been introduced. This application provides important services such as online registration, payment of fees and appointment, online diagnostic reports, enquiring availability of blood online etc.

9) MyGov.in has been implemented as a platform for citizen engagement in governance, through a “Discuss”, “Do” and “Disseminate” approach. The mobile App for MyGov would bring these features to users on a mobile phone.

10) DeitY has undertaken an initiative namely Digitize India Platform (DIP) for large scale digitization of records in the country that would facilitate efficient delivery of services to the citizens.

Contd….

Contd….

Policy initiatives have also been undertaken by DeitY in the e- Governance domain like:

1. e-Kranti Framework - focuses on electronic delivery of services whether it

is education, health, agriculture, justice and financial inclusion.

2. Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for GoI

3. Framework for Adoption of Open Source S/w in e-Governance Systems

4. Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for GoI

5. E-mail Policy of Government of India

6. Policy on Use of IT Resources of Government of India

7. Policy on Collaborative Application Development by Opening the Source Code of Government Applications

8. Application Development & Re-Engineering Guidelines for Cloud Ready Applications

Other Important Policies • BPO Policy has been approved to create BPO centres in different North Eastern states and also in smaller towns of other states. • Business process re-engineeering will be undertaken to improve processes and service delivery. Services will be integrated with UIDAI, payment gateway and mobile platform. • Electronics Development Fund (EDF) Policy aims to promote Innovation, R&D, Product Development and to create a resource pool of IP within the country to create a self-sustaining eco-system of Venture Funds. • National Centre for Flexible Electronics (NCFlexE) is an initiative of Government of India to promote research and innovation in the emerging area of Flexible Electronics. • Centre of Excellence on Internet on Things (IoT) is a joint initiative of Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), ERNET and NASSCOM.

Digital India Mission – Expected to fueling

the economic growth with huge Investment

Impact of Digital India Programme

• Digital India has drawn investments worth Rs 4.5 lakh crore and will create 18 lakh jobs

• To move ahead from IT-enabled services to IT-enabled society

• People of 31 Gram Panchayats across 14 States watched the Digital India event through web conferencing, powered by NOFN's BharatNet network

• E-governance is going to change into m-governance or mobile governance.

• DigitalIndia aims at 1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation. A dream of a Digital India where the world looks to India for the next innovation, a Digital India where ICT enabled citizen-government interface is incorruptible,“

• BSNL already has 55 Next Generation Network in place to replace 30-year-old exchanges; their number will grow to 683 by year end. BSNL also has 53 active Wi-Fi hotspots, and aims to have 2500 Wi-Fi hotspots by the end of 2015.

• Government is launching apps for Swachh Bharat Mission, PayGov and MyGov, and setting up National Centre for Flexible Electronics and National Insititute for IoT (Internet of Things).

Industry Responds warmly • The government had approved the programme comprising various

projects worth over Rs. 1,00,000 crores to transform the country into a digitally empowered knowledge economy.

• Reliance Jio Infocomm will invest Rs 2,50,000 crore as part of Digital India programme – Sri. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman - RIL

• TCS aims to hire 60,000 IT professionals this year, and has partnered with the government for projects like Passport Seva and

income tax e-filing, as well as state-level projects – Sri. Cyrus

Mistry, chairman of Tata Group

• Digital India initiative will democratize the nation and "break down the digital divide in India – Sri. Azim Premji, Chairman – Wipro

• Birla Group will invest $2 billion electronic manufacturing, energy storage, smart cities and Internet of Things over next the 5 years. - Sri. Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman Birla Group

• Additionally, Idea Cellular will be a partner of the government in Digital India, and will invest $7 billion over 5 years for network rollout & enhancements, broadband implementation and Wi-Fi deployment. It will also launch weather forecasting advisories and mandi price services for farmers, along with a mobile wallet. -Sri. Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman Birla Group

• Reliance Group will invest Rs 10,000 Crore in tech projects as part of Digital India. The company's upcoming five fully operational Cloud Xchange points that "can help government departments access 240 times the amount of compute power currently available in government data centres, and over 6 times the high-speed storage currently available in India.“ – Sri. Anil Ambani – Chariman of Reliance Group

• Bharti Group will spend $16 billion across urban and rural areas as part of the Digital India campaign and will start manufacturing in India to reduce the import burden. Sri. Bharti Enterprises chairman and group CEO, Sunil Bharti Mittal

Contd….

S.No. Company Amount to be invested

Purpose

1 Govt. of India 1,00,000 Crore to transform the country into a digitally empowered knowledge economy

2. TCS To hire 60,000 Professionals to implement DIP

3 Reliance Jio Rs. 2,50,000 Crore Infocomm

4 Reliance Group Rs. 10,000 Crore To create 05 fully operational Cloud Xchange points that "can help government departments access 240 times the amount of compute power currently available in government data centres, and over 6 times the high-speed storage currently available in India.

5. Bharti Enterprises $ 16 Billion as part of the Digital India campaign and will start manufacturing in India to reduce the import burden

6 Vednata Rs. 4,000/- Crore to expand fibre and cable manufacturing capacity

7 Bilra Group $ 2 Billion for network rollout & enhancements, broadband implementation and Wi-Fi deployment.

8 Idea Cellular $ 7 Billion

And many more in the list…………..

Challenges of Digital India Mission

1. Infrastructure • Digital India aims to have broadband networks that will span

India's cities, towns and 250,000 villages by end-2016, along with a system of networks and data centres called the National Information Infrastructure.

• Experience shows that it is communications and content, not empty pipes, that drive network usage. And manufacturing content is not a government strength.

• For example mobile broadband use has exploded, currently standing at 85 million users, driven by apps like Facebook and WhatsApp, and the sharing of images and videos.

• This project needs content and service partnerships with telecom companies and other firms, with new entrepreneurs.

2. Universal Access to Phones

• This focuses on mobile network penetration, with a plan to fill the gaps in connectivity in India by 2018. Though mobile networks have reached most populated parts of India, but still 42,300 villages still exist outside the reach of a mobile signal.

• "Universal access" does not, however, guarantee a working network. Even in its major cities, India's mobile network is so stressed that many say it's broken, with call failures and drops a common complaint.

• An intense shortage of spectrum has driven up costs and driven down service quality for India's telecom industry. But the problem is much bigger than dropped calls. As many as 85% of India's 100 million broadband users are mobile.

• As users ramp up multimedia use, and the next 100 million mobile broadband users come on board, networks will not be able to keep up. Digital India needs more spectrum.

3. Public Internet Access

• This aims to increase the number of government-run facilities (Common Service Centres or CSC) that provide digital services to citizens, especially in remote or rural areas with low connectivity.

• The objective is to increase the 140,000 facilities to 250,000, or one in nearly every village. It also aims to convert 150,000 post offices into multi-service centres. The vision is that the longest distance a villager or tribesperson should have to travel should be to the nearest CSC.

• This project was first approved in 2006, but moved slowly in its initial years. One of the big boosts from Digital India could be the dramatic ramp-up the mega-project is setting as a target. Citizen services will be one driver of adoption.

4. e-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology

• For decades, hundreds of e-governance projects have been piloted across India. Many were quick successes that however died out once the chief promoter, often a bureaucrat on a two-year posting, moved on.

• The processes and services include digitising manual databases, introducing online applications and tracking, using online repositories for citizen documents, introducing publicly-visible government workflow automation, and public grievance redress.

• Experts say that almost every e-governance project that India needs has been successfully piloted somewhere in the country. The daunting task for Digital India will be to take successful pilot projects, replicate and scale them up.

5. e-Kranti - Electronic Delivery of Services

• e-Kranti comprises 41 large e-governance initiatives, called "mission mode projects".

• They span e-education (all schools to get broadband and free wi-fi, as well as MOOCs - Massive Online Open Courses), e-Healthcare and technology for farming, security, financial inclusion, justice, planning and cyber-security.

• The sheer scale of these projects helps ensure that they do not meet the fate of most e-governance projects in India, which remain pilots.

• Several have been completed successfully, including the overhauled passport service, and the "MCA21" project for company registration from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

6. Information for All

• This set of web, mobile and social media platforms aims to connect citizens with the government. It is already well under way, both on social media, and the citizen portal MyGov.in.

• The present BJP-led government has been widely lauded for its social-media savvy and its use of digital outreach tools. Prime minister Narendra Modi is one of the world's most influential Twitter users, with over 13 million followers (and another 7 million on his official @PMOIndia account)

• But critics say that these digital channels are used mostly in broadcast mode, with Mr Modi responding to very few, filtered, questions, and no criticism, especially from media. His supporters say he uses them to connect directly to citizens, bypassing media.

7. Electronics Manufacturing

• This plan aims for "net zero imports" in electronics, or imports that match exports by value, by 2020. This is ambitious.

• As of now, India stands to import three quarters of the $400bn worth of electronics products it will consume in the next five years.

• Hardware exports as of now are still under $10bn. This calls for a very big ramp-up in local manufacturing.

• The plan includes incentives for big chip fabrication as well for mobile and set-top box manufacturers, and clusters and incubators for start-ups.

• That's probably the biggest push and global image makeover being attempted by the Modi government, via its "Make in India" campaign launched last year.

• Critics of the programme say that the "manufacturing first" focus can slow progress when the objective should be on something else, like education (such as with the UPA government's Aakaash tablet programme).

• There is also a school of thought that "net zero" imports should be seen on a wider canvas - for instance across technology products and services.

• India exports nearly $100bn worth of technology and business process services.

8. IT for Jobs

• This is a project to train 10 million students from smaller towns and villages for IT sector jobs over five years.

• Among the plans: Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) locations in every north-eastern state, 300,000 service delivery agents to be trained for IT services, and 500,000 rural workers to be trained by telecom operators for their own needs.

• The challenge here is not just the numbers, but quality. The technology sector increasingly finds that the dwindling manpower resources available for its jobs are under-trained and mismatched to its needs.

• Most firms are forced to invest a great deal into their own training for "fresher" recruits.

9. Early Harvest Programmes • These are the low-hanging fruit, and the projects already under way.

• For instance, a new messaging platform for government employees has over 13 million mobiles and 2 million emails in the database; biometric attendance for all central government offices in Delhi, wi-fi in universities and in public locations, eBooks in schools, SMS-based weather information, disaster alerts.

• The challenge remains usage. For instance, the project aims to provide secure email as the primary form of communications within the government, and to the outside world.

• Official email has been available for well over a decade in India, though its security is debatable. Yet most government officials and politicians prefer to use personal email services from Gmail and other public providers that can be accessed on their mobile phones.

• Most experts see this as a huge risk.

Summary

• Though there are prevailing issues which needs to be addressed for success of an ambitious project like Digital India, experts believe the Digital India vision can transform India into a connected knowledge economy with strong leadership and the government’s collaboration with the tech companies - many of them are already playing a key role in creating next generation infrastructure for the government’s Digital India initiative.

• Digital India Initiatives would provide the much-needed impetus to the economic growth - given its focus on key social and industry sectors.

• “Not only IT/ITeS, telecom, electronics manufacturing sectors would be benefited from Digital India, but we would see positive impact on other industry sectors as well, like Power Sector and Banking and Financial Services

• To sum-up Digital India is no longer an initiative by the government, it has evolved into a revolution, a movement.

For details please visit….. • http://www.digitalindia.gov.in/

• http://deity.gov.in/

Thank You!

Dr. Sunil Kr Pandey, I.T.S, Mohan Nagar, Ghaziabad

www.its.edu.in