Vikas Yojana – Digital India Program

The Digital India mission aims to grow the sectors of manufacturing, healthcare, education, electronic services, etc. By creating job opportunities and giving people the tools to use their imagination creatively to create solutions and businesses to economically empower themselves.

There are 3 major areas of development:

1. Citizens' Digital Empowerment.
2. Services & Governance on Demand.
3. Digital Infrastructure to every Indian citizen as a utility.

With these visions in mind, Digital India aims to establish broadband highways, and give people access to universal mobile connectivity, E-Governance, universal Public Internet Access, etc.

Digital India Projects

There are many projects and products which are in tune with the vision and mission of Digital India, which are in different phases of ideation and creation, and some are already launched.

1. Digital Locker System: This was launched as a way to minimize physical paper documents, which are easy to misplace and are prone to all kinds of damage - rendering them useless, and effectively terminating the document-holders claim to the asset or validation previously certified by the existence of these documents. The Digital Locker System promotes digitization of important documents, which enhances safety, and also eases the process of sharing and transferring documents between government departments through registered repositories for various reasons.
2. MyGov.in: This is an online platform through which citizens can interact with their government through the "Disseminate, Do & Discuss" model of citizen engagement and governance. The mobile app will make it far easier to access this facility.
3. Swachh Bharat Mission: The idea behind the Swachh Bharat Mission is to literally make the country a cleaner, healthier, and less environment-damaging place to live. The technology behind the app will be used by the government and the people to achieve Swachh Bharat Mission's goals.
4. eSign Framework: This facility will enable citizens to digitally sign and authenticate documents using the Aadhaar.
5. Online Registration System: This system was introduced under the eHospital application. Users can use this online system to enquire about the availability of blood, download or upload diagnostic reports, set appointments with healthcare professionals, register, and even pay fees - all online.
6. National Scholarships Portal: This online solution enables students to complete their entire scholarship application process - from start to finish - online. Right from submitting the application form, sanctioning, verifying to the eventual disbursement of scholarship benefits to the student will be provided online by the Indian Government.
7. Digitize India Platform: This is a hugely ambitious project that aims at the large scale digitization of all types of records in the country.
8. Bharat Net: This is the largest rural mass internet program planned in India, it aims to connect all 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats in the country with high speed internet and a digital interface.
9. Next Generation Network: This was introduced by BSNL to replace older exchanges, to manage all types of data.
10. Large scale implementation of WiFi hotspots in populated areas in cities all over the country is being planned and executed by BSNL.
11. The Centre plans to establish high speed broadband highways, which will serve as the pillar of Digital India, enabling citizens to interact with authorities over the internet.

Policy initiatives

Policy initiatives are being undertaken in the e-Governance domain, for application development and re-engineering guidelines for the applications of cloud-ready collaborative application development through modifying the government's source code, the policy of Information technology resources, the government's e-mail policy, the government's Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), the framework to adopt an e-Governance system, etc.

1. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) policies are being approved to create and operate BPOs in the North Eastern States, and in smaller towns in other states.
2. Electronic Development Fund (EDF) policies that work towards product development, Research & Development, product innovations, creation of resource pools, etc. to create a self-sustaining eco-system for Venture Funds.
3. National Centre for Flexible Electronics (NCFlexE)is a high powered initiative by the government to promote innovation and research in the arena of flexible electronics.
4. Centre of Excellence on Internet on Things (IoT) is a joint initiative by NASSCOM, ERNET, and the Department of Electronics & Information Technology.

By the year 2019, the Digital India initiative aims to cut the cost of Information Technology education, access to the internet, connectivity between schools, offices, government departments, universities, etc. The plan also aims to link all the Panchayats in the country and bring them on a single network. The employment opportunities and opportunities to grow the economy as a whole through initiatives taken by the people will be almost endless, thanks to the large population. Digital India is definitely a step in the right direction, so long as the internet remains a place where opinions and art can be expressed freely and by everyone, equally.