New Delhi : Union Minister for Communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday said through the transformative and ambitious ‘Digital India’ programme of the Government of India, so far more than 12,000 rural post office branches have been linked digitally and soon payment banking would also become a reality for the post offices.
He further said that the programme has started bearing fruits after six months of its inception.
“E-services have begun to pick up momentum and reaching the bottom of the pyramid, which is digitally empowering the people of the country. But the governments at the Central and state levels, industry and academia need to work in tandem to accelerate the pace of digitisation,” Prasad said at the second edition of the international conference ‘i-Bharat’, organised by FICCI in partnership with the Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY), Ministry of Communications and IT, here today.
“The government has planned to make ‘Digital Village’ across the country, by linking all schemes with technology. The digital village would be powered by LED lighting, solar energy, skill development centres, e-services like e-education and e-health. To make this programme a success, District Collectors will have to play an important role,” he added.
Speaking about eTaal, Prasad said that the web portal disseminates real time statistics of the e-transactions taking place at the national and state level e-Governance Projects. He added that the National e-Governance Plan of Indian Government sought to provide impetus for long-term growth of e-Governance within the country.
On promoting electronic manufacturing in India, Prasad said that the progressive policies and aggressive focus on ‘Make in India’ initiative have played a significant part in the resurgence of the electronics manufacturing sector. Investment in the electronics manufacturing has increased, giving a quantum jump to the sector.
Elaborating on the headway made in connecting gram panchayats of the country with the optical fibre network, Prasad said that 18 states were on board and the work was on at a rapid pace. To script a success story with ‘ Digital India’, the government and industry had to look for innovative ways to expedite the process of connecting India digitally, he added.
Harshavardhan Neotia, President, FICCI, said that the Government has embarked on a reforms programme focused on making India an easy place to do business. The emphasis has been on simplification and rationalisation of the existing rules and introduction of information technology to make governance more efficient and effective. Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and Mobile number (JAM) trinity is acting as a game changing reform that is allowing transfer of benefits in a leakage-proof, well-targeted and cashless manner.
Debjani Ghosh, Chairperson, FICCI IT Committee, said that technology was changing the world and its transformative powers were evidently visible in India.?New technologies were deeply impacting governance, society, and security and this year’s i-Bharat conference aimed to bring together leaders from all segments of industry and government to explore and demystify the complex technology trends and reach at solutions and execution techniques of the programs to connect India digitally. She added that the government and industry needed to figure out new solutions to speed up the process of making India digital.
Ambrish Bakaya, Co-Chairperson, FICCI IT Committee and Dr. A Didar Singh, Secretary General, FICCI, also shared their perspectives on digitisation.(ANI)