By Pradipto Chakrabarty
Launched on July 1, 2015 the
Digital India initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi generated a good deal
of euphoria. The aim of this ambitious project is to create an empowered
society and knowledge economy with emphasis on e-governance. The projected expenditure on this
project is Rs
1, 13,000 crore. Its highlights included providing high speed internet services
to citizens. Digital India also aimed at ease of doing business in the country
and on providing broadband services in all villages, implementing tele-medicine
and mobile healthcare services, electronic education delivery and making
governance more participative – thereby improving processes and delivery of services through e-Governance
with the power of UIDAI, payment gateway, EDI and mobile platforms.
Digital
Dream
Modi’s Digital initiative also aimed to provide
internet services to 2.5 lakh villages and 1.5 lakh post offices which would be
converted to multi-service centres.The government promised to lay national
optical fibre network in all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats and take steps to ensure that
by 2018 all villages were covered through mobile connectivity. It also planned
to train 1 crore students from small towns and villages for IT sector by 2020.
These measures – the
nine pillars of digitalisation – envisaged in the vision document, were just
what India had been waiting for all these years and what it needed to implement
to become a truly global economy.
Pat on the Back
Understandably, the initial
response to Modi’s Digital India vision from leading global players was
extremely positive. Many of them offered to be India’s partner in this
initiative. Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, for instance, said that his company
would set up low cost broadband technology services in 5 lakh villages across
the country. SundarPichai, CEO, Google hoped that with this initiative India
would play a big role in driving technology forward and improve the lives of
its citizens.
However, the digitalization of a country, especially a country of the
size and diversity of India -- cannot be a taken as a silo; it has to have a
360 degree perspective encompassing all socio-economic parameters.
Slow Implementation
So while the Digital India initiative is great on paper, its execution
has been far behind schedule.
There are many reasons for the
PM’s digital juggernaut rolling so slowly. The major hurdle towards
implementing the DI mission is the wide digital divide that exists in India. It
is a paradox that even though mobile penetration in India is high, the internet
connectivity is one of the lowest among countries. Without internet
connectivity, the effectiveness of digital services is hugely compromised. Lack
of language and digital literacy in using technology to access and use
information is also a problem. Although smart phones are available cheap in
India, most people, especially in rural and semi-rural areas have no idea how
to use them. The root cause of such literacy barriers is of course our under
resourced education system and abysmally low IT awareness among user
communities.
Nations around the world are recognizing the transformational impact of
bringing more of their population online and network operators and device
manufacturers are exploring ways to further reduce the cost of access and
provide service to underserved populations. India needs to do this with greater
urgency and speed. Most of India is still not connected – even if they are, the
network infrastructure is so poor and archaic that speed is a major concern.
Even in metros, we have to put up with abysmal speed even on 4G networks. This
must change, and fast.
How to Expedite Things
For effective implementation of the Digital India mission the laying of
the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) has to be speeded up on war footing.
At the moment, this activity is taking place at snail’s speed. The Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL)
the special purpose vehicle along with
its implementing agencies which are PSUs with archaic processes and
procedures and in many cases also slow
in technology adaptation. They need to pull up their socks and work with
greater zeal and vigour to deliver Modi’s vision of Digital India.
The infrastructure (the hardware as well as the Network
infrastructure),too, is dated and in many cases, maintenance of equipment not
up to the mark. Quite often, the
government does not have enough people skilled in these domains.
Another important reason for the slow implementation of Digital India is
lack of understanding of new technologies such as cloud, mobility and IoT.
Cyber security is a major issue which is, unfortunately, not being given
the attention it deserves. This ought to be a major concern, especially now
with sensitive data uploaded on IT systems. The Digital India content is highly
vulnerable and needs to be secured against cyber-attack. This becomes even more
critical with the large volume of financial transactions moving digital now.
Major Imperatives
To translate the Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India into reality
speedily we need to have a multipronged strategy and work on multi-discipline
areas to bridge the digital divide that exists in India at present. The
simplest way of doing this is through mass IT awareness programs. Improving IT
skills– both at user end as well as implementation end needs to be a major
priority.
The importance of cybersecurity and cyber defence as key pillars of
Digital India’s march forward cannot be over emphasized. It has to be kept in
mind at every stage of implementation of the digital India initiative. We also
need to cut down on bureaucracy in the implementation of NOFN – this is the
first and most important step to connect the country on high speed broadband.
And finally, there is no option but to think of cloud-based solutions to
disseminate digital services.
(The writer is Regional Director, CompTIA, the
voice of the world’s information technology industry. CompTIA is dedicated to
advancing industry growth through its educational programs, professional
certifications and public policy advocacy)
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