Lok Sabha Question No. 3250 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-03-16
Subject: Upgrading Digital Infrastructure
Ministry: RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: Dayanidhi Maran

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT

## DEPARTMENT OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT

## LOK  SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3250 ANSWERED ON 16.03.2021

## UPGRADING DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE

## 3250.   SHRI DAYANIDHI MARAN:

Will the Minister of RURAL DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has considered or reviewed any new schemes or proposals for upgrading digital infrastructure,  last  mile  connectivity  and  increasing  digital  literacy  in rural villages and if so, the details thereof;
- (b) whether  the  Government  has  considered  or  reviewed  any  partnerships  with  other ministries  or  nongovernmental  organizations  or  private  players  for  upgrading  digital infrastructure, last mile connectivity and increasing digital literacy in rural villages and if so, the details thereof; and
- (c) the  list  of  schemes  and  activities  proposed  by  the  Government  towards  this  goal  since 2014 and the details of their implementation and achievements?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT (SHRI NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR)

(a) to (c ). Yes Sir. The Department of Telecommunications, through Bharat Net, is providing broadband connectivity  to  all  the  Gram  Panchayats  (  approx.  2.5  lakhs)  in  the  country.  Some more schemes implemented by Ministry of  Communications for increasing Internet connectivity include  (i) Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan (CTDP) for the North-Eastern Region, (ii) Implementation of Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan for Islands, (iii) Scheme for Mobile  Communication  Services  in  Left  Wing  Extremism  (LWE)  Affected  Areas,   (iv)  354 Uncovered villages Scheme for mobile services in 354 identified uncovered border villages, (v) Aspirational District Schemes for 4G coverage in identified uncovered villages of Aspirational Districts.

National  Broadband  Mission  (NBM)  was  launched  on  17.12.2019  by  the  Department  of Telecommunications with a vision to fast track growth of digital communication infrastructure. Some of the  objectives  of  NBM  are  'Broadband  access  to  all  villages  by  2022',  'Facilitating universal  and  equitable  access  to  broadband  services  for  across  the  country  and  especially  in rural and remote areas', 'Laying of incremental 30 lakh route km of Optical Fiber Cable (OFC) and  'increasing  tower  density  from  0.42  to  1.0  tower  per  thousand  of  population  by  2024', 'Significantly improving quality of services for mobile and internet' etc.

Ministry  of  Electronics  &  Information  Technology  (MeitY)  implemented  the  National  Digital Literacy  Mission  (NDLM)  and  Digital  Saksharta  Abhiyan  (DISHA)  from  the  year  2014-16 wherein, 53.67 lakhs beneficiaries were trained in Digital Literacy and 42% of these candidates were from rural areas. Under Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA), approved in 2017,  MeitY has targeted to provide digital literacy in rural India by covering six crore rural households (one person per household). The scheme envisages to cover each of the

2.5  lakhs  Gram  Panchayats  across  the  country.  Special  focus  of  the  scheme  is  to  train beneficiaries on the use of electronic payment systems. So far, more than 4.53 crore candidates have been enrolled and around 3.69 crore have been trained. Other key initiatives undertaken by MeitY under Digital India programme are as follows:

(i). The  Government  has  approved  the  Scheme  for  establishing  State  Wide  Area  Networks (SWANs) across the country to connect all State/UT Headquarters (SHQ) up to the Block level via  District/  sub-Divisional  Headquarters  (DHQ),  in  a  vertical  hierarchical  structure  with  a minimum  bandwidth  capacity  of  2  Mbps  per  link.  Each  of  the  State/UT  can  enhance  the bandwidth up to 34 Mbps between SHQ and DHQ and upto 8 Mbps between DHQ and BHQ depending upon the utilization. Presently, SWANs have been made operational in 34 States/UTs.

(ii).  Under  the  State  Data  Center  (SDC)  scheme,  Data  Centres  have  been  targeted  in  all  the States/UTs to consolidate services, applications and infrastructure in order to provide efficient electronic  delivery  of  Government  to  Government (G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C) and Government to Business (G2B) services. These services can be rendered by the States through common service delivery  platforms  seamlessly  supported  by  core  connectivity  infrastructure, such  as,  SWAN  and  Common  Service  Centres  (CSC)  as  the  frontend  delivery  outlets  at  the village level. As on date, 29 SDCs have been made operational.

(iii). The Common Services Centres (CSC), which are kiosks for delivery of G2C Services, are being opened at each of 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats(GP). So far, 3.73 Lakh Common Services Centres  are  functional  including  2.78  lakh  CSCs  at  Gram  Panchayat  levels.  Over  300  digital services are offered by these CSCs.

(iv). As part of the Digital India program, the Government of India embarked upon an ambitious initiative known as MeghRaj, to utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing. This will ensure accelerating the delivery of e-services in the country. Under MeghRaj, the Government of India has already set up NIC National Cloud, which has been offering cloud services to the Government Departments since February 2014.

(v).  MeitY  has  also  initiated  the  'Digital  Village  Pilot  Project'  in  October,  2018.  700  Gram Panchayats (GPs)/Village with at least one Gram Panchayat/Village per District per State/UT are covered under the project.  The  digital  services  offered  are  Digital  Health  Services,  Education Service,  Financial  Services,  Skill  Development,  Solar  panel  powered  street  lights  including Government to Citizens Services (G2C), Business to Citizen (B2C) Services.

(vi).  Digital  Locker provides an ecosystem with a collection of repositories and gateways for issuers to upload the documents in the digital repositories. So far, there are 5.5 crore registered users of DigiLocker.

(vii). e-District is a Mission Mode Project (MMP) that aims at electronic delivery of identified high volume citizen centric services at the district or sub- district level. Total 3,870 e-District services have been launched in 705 districts across 33 States/UTs.

(viii). Open Government Data (OGD) Platform is a platform for supporting Open Data initiative of Government of India. It intends to increase transparency in the functioning of Government and also open avenues for many more innovative usages of Government Data to give different perspectives.

(ix).  Online  Registration  System  (ORS)  under  eHospital  includes  online  appointment  and registration  by  new  patients,  viewing  of  lab  reports,  checking  the  status  of  blood  availability and  integration  with  payment  gateway  (PayGov).  Till  date,  36.56  lakh  online  appointments have been made in 260 Hospitals through ORS.

- (x). eSign is an initiative for easy, efficient, and secure signing of electronic documents by an Aadhaar holder. Aadhaar holders (individuals, Government officials, corporate executives, etc.) can digitally sign an electronic document without having a hardware cryptographic device. eSign service facilitates instant signing of documents online by citizens in a legally acceptable form. Over 12.50 crore eSigns have been issued.
- (xi).  National  Centre  of  Geo-informatics  (NCoG)  project,  is  a  GIS  platform  developed  for sharing, collaboration, location based analytics and decision support system for Departments. So far, 516 applications across various domains are operational.
- (xii). Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance (UMANG) has been developed as a single mobile platform to deliver major Government services with Core Platform integrated with Aadhaar,  DigiLocker,  PayGov,  Rapid  Assessment  System  (RAS)  etc.  It  supports  around  12 Indian languages, in addition to English and has been hosted on cloud. UMANG aims to bring power  to  the  fingertips  of  citizens.  About  20,525  services  from  219  departments  (Central  & States) are  available on UMANG platform.
- (xiii). MyGov is a first-of-its-kind citizen engagement platform for participatory governance in India. MyGov aims to facilitate a dialogue between citizens and Government, bringing citizens closer to the Government and bringing the Government closer to the citizens it serves, via this platform.  Presently,  over  1.51  crore  users  are  registered  with  MyGov,  participating  in  various activities hosted on MyGov platform.

The Union Cabinet has given approval to the Department of Telecommunications to proliferate Broadband through Public Wi-Fi networks under the Prime Minister's Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (PM-WANI) framework. The PM-WANI framework envisages provision of Broadband through Public Wi-Fi Hotspot providers and will consist of the following elements:

- (i). Public Data Office (PDO) : It  will establish, maintain, and operate PM-WANI compliant WiFi Access Points and provide last-mile connectivity to deliver Broadband services to subscribers by  procuring  internet  bandwidth  from  telecom  service  providers  and/  or  internet  service providers.
- (ii).  Public  Data  Office  Aggregator  (PDOA):  Any  Indian  Company  registered  under  Indian Company  Act  2013  can  become  PDOA.   It  will  provide  aggregation  services such as authorization and accounting to PDOs, thereby facilitating PDOs in providing services to the end consumer.
- (iii).  App  Provider:  It  will  develop  an  Application  to  register  users  and  'discover'  and  display PM-WANI compliant Wi-Fi hotspots in the proximity for accessing the internet service and also authenticate the potential Broadband users.

The  user  experience  and  Quality  of  Service  for  Broadband  would  thus  improve  significantly. This service will be specially useful in rural areas where Public Wi-Fi Hotspots would be created under Bharat Net. The telecom and internet service providers will also benefit due to the sale of bandwidth to PDOs.

The  Ministry  of  Rural  Development  is  implementing  Shyama  Prasad  Mukherjee  Rurban Mission(SPMRM) under which Digital literacy is one of the twenty one components taken up for cluster development.

*******