DIGITAL INDIA PROJECT - ARTICLE

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 1, 2015 formally launched the Digital India Project in two village Panchayats of the district Indore, MP. The Projects, which will ensure an investment of Rs. 4.5 lakh crore and jobs for at least 18 lakh people, focuses on three objectives - infrastructure as a utility for every citizen, governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. Here are the 10 important initiatives of Digital India:

• DIGILocker: This initiative looks to minimize the usage of physical documents. It is a dedicated personal storage space for e-documents as well as Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of e-documents issued by government departments. Individual Locker will be linked to the resident's Aadhaar number, and enable sharing of e-documents across agencies whenever required.

• Bharat Net: This initiative will work towards building high-speed digital highways to connect all 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats of country by next year. This would be the world's largest broadband connectivity using optical fiber,

• MyGov app: The PM launched the mobile version of the MyGov.in website. This platform encourages citizen engagement in governance, and the app will do the same on mobile.

• eSign: An initiative to eradicate forgery and fraudulent signature, the eSign framework would allow citizens to digitally sign a document online using Aadhaar authentication.

• National Scholarships Portal: This new service is said to be 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 Government.

• E-education: The program looks to provide high-tech education using technology like smartphones, apps and Internet services. It can also be used to provide education in far-flung areas where it may not be possible for teachers to be present in person.

• E-health: This initiative aims at providing timely, effective and economical healthcare services to all, especially to the ones that have little access to healthcare services. This service too will be linked to Aadhaar numbers, and will make getting lab reports and OPD appointments easier. 

• Next Generation Network (NGN): A BSNL initiative, it looks to replace 30 year old exchanges, with this new IP-based technology to manage all types of services like voice, data, multimedia/ video are other types of communication services.    

• Wi-Fi hotsopts: BSNL has undertaken large scale deployment of Wi-fi hotsopts throughout the country for internet access on smartphones while on-the-go.