Lok Sabha Question No. 1414 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-02-10
Subject: Digital Technology Solutions
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: S. Jagathrakshakan

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.1414

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 10.02.2021

## DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

## 1414.  SHRI S. JAGATHRAKSHAKAN:

Will  the  Minister  of  ELECTRONICS  &  INFORMATION  TECHNOLOGY  be  pleased  to state: -

- (a) the  steps  taken  by  the  Government  to  implement  digital  technology  solutions  in accessible rural areas of around 6,50,000 villages in the country; and
- (b) whether the Government has drawn any action plan to connect  all villages across the country with optic fiber cables within 1,000 days and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI SANJAY DHOTRE)

- (a):      Government  of  India  has  initiated  the  'Digital  India'  programme  with  the  vision  to transform  India  into  a  digitally  empowered  society  and  knowledge-based  economy  by ensuring  digital  access,  digital  inclusion,  digital  empowerment  and  bridging  the  digital divide. Under Digital India Programme, MeitY has effectively utilised Digital technologies to transform the lives of people  at centres & rural areas, while ensuring digital inclusion of all the segments.

Various initiatives have been undertaken by Government for penetration of digital technology application across the country. Under Pillar 5: e-Kranti of Digital India programme, a total of 44 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) is being implemented by various Central Ministries/Departments, States, and State Departments.  These MMPs are providing services in the areas such as education, healthcare, agriculture, justice, land records, social benefits, local  governments,  rural  development,  women  &  child  development,  legislature,  transport, financial  services,  Income  Tax  (IT),  Passport,  Posts,  etc.  Some  of  the  key  initiatives implemented having impact across the country including rural areas are as follows:

-  Common  Services  Centre  (CSC): The  Common  Services  Centres  are  service (Government to Citizen & Business to Citizen) delivery centres. As on 31 st December 2020, 3.74 lakhs CSCs are functional in rural and urban areas.
-  A'Digital  Village  Pilot  Project'  in  October,  2018  covering  700  Gram  Panchayats (GPs)/ villages(at least one Gram Panchayat/village per District per State/UT) is being implemented  across  the  country.  The  project  is  being  implemented  by  M/s  CSC eGovernance Services  India  Limited.  The  digital  services  being  offered  are  Digital Health  Services  (Tele-Health  &  Tele-Veterinary  consultation),  Education  Service (NIELIT courses on BCC/CCC, Tally), Financial  Inclusion Awareness Programme,
- Skill  Development,  Solar  panel  powered  street  lights  including  Government  to Citizens Services (G2C), Business to Citizen (B2C) Services.
-  Digital locker: Digital Locker provides an ecosystem with collection of repositories and gateways for issuers to upload the documents in the digital repositories. So far 5.54 Crore are registered user and 426 Crore documents  are available with DigiLocker.
-  Jeevan Pramaan: Digital  Life  Certificate  for  Pensioners  scheme  known  as  Jeevan Pramaan envisages to digitize the whole process of securing the life certificate. So far 4.45  Crore  Digital  Life  Certificate  (DLC)  submitted  since  2014  out  of  which  3.46 Crore DLCs has been successfully processed.
-  Online  Registration  System(ORS)/eHospital: 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).  eHospital  implemented  in  420  hostpilats  with  18.36 Crore transactions. ORS in 260 hospital with136.66b lakhs online appointments.
-  Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance (UMANG): UMANG has been  developed  as  a  single  mobile  platform  to  deliver  major  Government.1051 services  from  219  Central/state/UT  Government  departments  along  with  19474 Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) have been on-boarded on UMANG. It has 2.6 Crore registered users and 4.8 Crore downloads of UMANG app.

Delivery of these services at villages are possible by using the broadband/fiber optical connectivity (BharatNet) provided by the Department of Telecommunication.

- (b): The  BharatNet  project  for  connecting  2,50,000  Gram  Panchayats  (GPs)  on  Optical Fibre  Connectivity  (OFC)  has  been  mandated  to  extend  to  over  6  lakhs  in  1000  days  and various  models  are  being  implemented  to  achieve  the  same  such  as  Central  Public  Sector Undertaking (CPSU) led, State led and through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.  The project  is  envisaged  to  be  completed  by  May,  2023.  The  approval  in  this  regard  is  under process. This connectivity will facilitate broad band access in rural areas for digital solutions to be implemented.

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