Lok Sabha Question No. 1168 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-02-09
Subject: Status of Digital India
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Dileshwar Kamait, Navneet Ravi Rana, Ramesh Chander Kaushik, Saikia Dilip, Vinayak Bhaurao Raut, Geeta Kora, Jyotirmay Singh Mahato, Jugal Kishore Sharma

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1168

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 09.02.2022

## STATUS OF DIGITAL INDIA

## 1168. SHRI DILESHWAR KAMAIT:

SHRIMATI NAVNEET RAVI RANA:

SHRI RAMESH CHANDER KAUSHIK:

SHRI DILIP SAIKIA:

SHRI VINAYAK RAUT:

SHRIMATI GEETA KORA:

SHRI JYOTIRMAY SINGH MAHATO:

SHRI JUGAL KISHORE SHARMA:

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

- (a) the  status  of  implementation  of  Digital  India  Programme  in  the  country  including Maharashtra;
- (b) whether all the villages and towns in remote areas of the country including Maharashtra have been connected to the basic communication/internet services;
- (c) if so, the details thereof; and if not, the reasons therefor;
- (d) the time by which the entire country is likely to be connected with these services;
- (e) whether the Government proposes to provide basic internet services to all the villages to educate the rural youths of the country keeping in view the conduct of online classes;
- (f) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor;
- (g) whether the Government is formulating any other scheme in this regard; and
- (h) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR)

(a):  The  Ministry  of  Electronics  and  Information  Technology  (MeitY),  Government  of  India launched  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. In summary, our mission is to ensure that the digital technologies improve the life of every citizen; expand India's digital economy, create employment and global digital technological capabilities in the country.

Digital  India  is  an  umbrella  programme  that  covers  multiple  projects  of  various  Central Ministries/Departments  and  States/UTs.  The  Digital  India  programme  is  centred  on  three  key vision  areas  namely  Digital  Infrastructure  as  a  Core  Utility  to  Every  Citizen,  Governance  and

Services  on  Demand  and  Digital  Empowerment  of  Citizens.  Digital  India  has  dramatically reduced distance between Government and citizens significantly. Further, Digital India has also helped  in  delivery  of  substantial  services  directly  to  the  beneficiary  in  a  transparent  and corruption  free  manner.  The  status  of  some  of  the  key  initiatives  undertaken  by  MeitY  under Digital India programme across the country including Maharashtra is at Annexure.

(b) to (d): Basic Communication/Internet facility is being provided in rural & remote areas by the Government,  Internet  Service  Providers  (ISPs)  and  the  Telecom  Service  Providers  (TSPs) through  a  mix  of  wireless  and  wireline  internet  services.  As  per  data  provided  by  Telecom Service Providers and field units of Department of Telecommunications, it is estimated that out of 5,97,618 inhabited villages (as per Census 2011) in the country, a total number of 5,72,551 villages have mobile wireless coverage. In Maharashtra, out of 40,959 inhabited villages (as per Census 2011), 38,631 numbers of villages have mobile coverage. Mobile wireless coverage in the  remaining  villages  is  provided  by  the  Government  and  Telecom  Service  Providers  in  a phased manner.

Further, in its endeavour to provide high speed internet/broadband connectivity to villages and rural Indians, BharatNet project is envisaged in all the Gram Panchayats (GPs) and villages of the  country.  As  on  31.12.2021,  a  total  number  of  1,69,244  Gram  Panchayats  have  been  made service ready with broadband infrastructure including 21,765 in Maharashtra.

(e)  to  (h):BharatNet  is  being  implemented  by  Department  of  Telecommunications  to  provide high speed internet/broadband connectivity to 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats (GPs) of the country. So  far,  63,100  Schools  have  been  provided  Fibre  to  the  Home  (FTTH)  connections  through BharatNet

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## ANNEXURE

Annexure referred to in Part (a) of the Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1168 for answer on 09.02.2022 regarding 'Status of Digital India'.

The  present  status  of  some  of  the  key  initiatives  undertaken  by  MeitY  under  Digital  India programme across the country including Maharashtra is as follows:

-  Aadhaar: Aadhaar  provides  12  digit  biometric  and  demographic  based  identity  that  is unique, lifelong, online and authenticable. Further to give statutory backing to Aadhaar 'The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016' was notified on 26 th March 2016. Over 132 + crore residents have been enrolled.
-  Common Services Centre (CSC): The Common Services Centres project aims to set-up at least one CSC at 2.50 lakh Gram Panchayats(GPs) across the country, for delivery of various Government  to  Citizen(G2C)  and  other  citizen  centric  e-Services.  It  is  a  self-sustainable entrepreneurship  model  which  is  run  by  Village  level  Entrepreneurs  (VLEs).  As  on  Dec
- 2021, total 4.47 lakh CSCs are functional (Urban + Rural), out of which, 3.48 lakh CSCs are functional at GP level.
-  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, more than 9.23 crore registered user of DigiLocker. 486 crore authentic documents have been issued. 1695 Issuers and 349 Requestor organizations have been on-boarded.
-  Unified  Mobile  Application  for  New-Age  Governance  (UMANG): UMANG has been developed  as  a  single  mobile  platform  to  deliver  major  Government  services.  Currently, 1,417 Services from 279 Central/ State Government department/ agencies of 33 States along with 20,527 services of Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) Utility services have been onboarded on UMANG.
-  e-Sign: e-Sign service facilitates instant signing of forms/documents online by citizens in a legally acceptable form. The services are being leveraged by various applications using OTP based authentication services of UIDAI. Total e-sign issued are 23.72 Crore and over 4.45 Crore e-Sign issued by CDAC.
-  MyGov: 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  2.25+  crore  users  are  registered  with MyGov, participating in various activities hosted on MyGov platform.
-  Digital  Village: MeitY  has  also  initiated  the  'Digital  Village  Pilot  Project'  in  October, 2018.  700  Gram  Panchayats  (GPs)/Village  with  atleast  one  Gram  Panchayat/Village  per District per State/UT are being covered under the project. The digital services being 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.
-  National Rollout of eDistrict MMP: e-District is a Mission Mode Project (MMP) that aims at electronic delivery of identified high volume citizen centric services at the district or subdistrict level. Total 3,916 e-District services have been launched in 709 districts across 28 States/ 6 UTs.
-  Open  Govt.  Data  Platform: 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 perspective. Currently, OGD platform have 5,26,805 resources with 428 CDOs of 243 Departments, designed 12,064 catalogs, 2,599 visualization & developed 1,29,396 APIs.
-  eHospital/  Online  Registration  System  (ORS): e-Hospital  application  is  the  Hospital Management Information System for internal workflows and processes of hospitals. Online Registration System (ORS) as well as e-Hospital applications are hosted at NIC's National Cloud. Currently, 631 Hospitals have been on-boarded on e-Hospital with over 23.38 crore e-Hospital transactions, and ORS has been adopted by 422 hospitals across the country with over 49 lakh appointments booked from ORS.
-  JeevanPramaan: Digital Life Certificate for Pensioners scheme known as JeevanPramaan envisages to digitize the whole process of securing the life certificate. With this initiative, the  pensioner  is  no  more  required  to  physically  present  himself  or  herself  in  front  of disbursing agency or the certification authority.  Over 557.63 lakh Digital  Life  certificates have been processed since 2014.
-  NCOG-GIS Applications: 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, 605 applications across various domains are operational.
-  National  Knowledge  Network: The  Objective  of the NKN  is  to  inter-connect all knowledge institutions across the country through high speed data communication network to encourage sharing of resources and collaborative research. A high speed data communication network has been established to interconnect Institution of higher learning, and  research.  So  far,  1752  links  to  Institutions  have  been  commissioned  and  made operational. 522 NKN links have been connected to NIC district centers across India.
-  Pradhan  MantriGramin  Digital  SakshartaAbhiyaan  (PMGDISHA): The  Government has  approved  a  new  scheme  titled  'Pradhan  MantriGramin  Digital  SakshartaAbhiyan (PMGDISHA)'  to  usher  in  digital  literacy  in  rural  India  by  covering  6  Crore  rural households  (one  person  per  household).  So  far,  training  has  been  imparted  to  4.68  crore candidates and out of this more than 3.48 crore candidates have been certified. The scheme is applicable to all rural areas of the country.
-  Unified  Payment Interface  (UPI): UPI  is  a  leading  digital  payment  platform.  It  powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. It also caters  to  the  'Peer  to  Peer'  collect  request  which  can  be  scheduled  and  paid  as  per requirement and convenience. 229 Banks are providing UPI Services.
-  FutureSkills  Prime: MeitY  in  collaboration  with  NASSCOM  has  initiated  a  programme titled  FutureSkills  PRIME.  The  programme  is  aimed  at  re-skilling/  up-skilling  of  IT professionals  in  10  new/emerging  technologies  which  include  Augmented/Virtual  Reality, Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Additive Manufacturing/ 3D Printing, Cloud Computing, Social & Mobile, Cyber Security and Blockchain.
-  Cyber  Security: Matters  relating  to  Cyber  Laws,  administration  of  the  Information Technology Act. 2000 (21 of 2000) (IT Act, 2000) and other IT related laws" comes under the purview of MeitY. While administering the parent IT Act, 2000, MeitY has the specific responsibility to ensure-better internet governance, data protection, cyber security, privacy over the Internet, promotion and regulation of technology companies and promotion of egovernance.  India  has  made  it  to  the  top  10  in  Global  Cybersecurity  Index  (GCI)  2020 launched by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on June 29, 2021, moving up 37 places to rank as the tenth best country in the world on key cybersafety parameters.
-  BPO Promotion Scheme: The India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) and North East BPO Promotion  Scheme  (NEBPS)  were  initiated  under  Digital  India  Programme  to  create employment opportunities for the youth of the country by setting up BPO/ITES operation in smaller cities across the country and North Eastern Region. The BPO Promotion Schemes aimed at incentivising establishment of total 53,300 seats in respect for BPO/ITES operation across  the  country.  Overall,  61,208  seats  were  allocated  to  eligible  entities  to  setup BPO/ITES operation under these schemes.
-  Electronics Manufacturing
- o Modified  Special  Incentive  Package  (M-SIPS):  As  on  date,  308  applications  with proposed investment of approximately Rs. 83,958 crore have been approved.
- o Electronic  Manufacturing  Clusters  (EMC):  Under  EMC  scheme,  19  Greenfield  EMCs and     3 Common Facility Centres (CFCs) measuring an area of 3,464 acres with project cost of     Rs. 3,762 crore including Government Grant-in-aid of Rs. 1,538 crore have been approved in 15 states across the country. Based on closure of receipt of applications under EMC scheme, MeitY notified Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC 2.0)  Scheme  on  1 st April,  2020  for  further  strengthening  the  infrastructure  base  for electronics industry in the country and deepening the electronics value chain. As of now, 2 applications for setting up of EMC over an area of 1,040 acres with project cost of Rs. 1,410  crore  including  Central  financial  assistance    ofRs.  681.04  crore  have  been approved.

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