Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Digital India's focus areas, and its big challenge

Digital India's focus areas, and its big challenge

Digital India's focus areas, and its big challenge with Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today kick off his Digital India project in Indore with a video conference. The initiative will connect 10 village panchayats with high-speed internet service starting tomorrow.

Work to connect 335 village panchayats with high-speed internet is almost nearing completion, a BSNL official said. Additionally, BSNL is hosting a Digital Week, under which school kids and commoners will be introduced to modern telecommunication techniques.

Following are the key areas of Digital programme:

Digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen
High-speed internet as a core utility
Cradle-to-grave digital identity -- unique, lifelong, online, and authenticable
Mobile phone & bank account -- enabling participation in digital & financial space
Easy access to a Common Service Centre
Shareable private space on a public cloud Safe and secure cyberspace

Governance and services on demand

Services available in real time from online &mobile platform and seamlessly integrated across departments or jurisdictions
All citizen entitlements to be available on the cloud
Services digitally transformed for improving ease of doing business Making financial transactions electronic & cashless
Leveraging GIS (Geographic Information System) for decision support systems & development

Digital empowerment of citizens

Universal digital literacy
Universally accessible digital resources
All documents/certificates to be available on the cloud
Availability of digital resources/services in Indian (regional) languages
Collaborative digital platforms for participative governance
Portability of all entitlements through cloud



However, the programme, which aims to connect 2,50,000 villages by 2019, faces grave challenges due to low internet speeds and penetration levels.

India's average internet speed was ranked 115th globally in the first quarter of the year, among countries studied by services provider Akamai Technologies. India had just a little over 100 million broadband subscribers at the end of April, out of a population of close to 1.3 billion, according to the sector regulator, which considers internet connections with minimum download speeds of 512kbps.

A telecom ministry panel, by comparison, said in March it wants the digital push to establish affordable broadband connectivity of 2Mbps to 20Mbps "for all households" by 2017.

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