Lok Sabha Question No. 1551 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2024-07-31
Subject: Digital Literacy and Skill Development
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Dr. Pradeep Kumar Panigrahy

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.1551

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 31.07.2024

## DIGITAL LITERACY AND SKILL DEVELOPMENT

## 1551.   DR. PRADEEP KUMAR PANIGRAHY:

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

- a) the manner in which the Government is promoting digital literacy and skill development initiatives to bridge the digital divide across urban and rural areas;
- b) whether the Government has taken initiatives to promote e-Governance and Digitisation of Government Services for improving efficiency and transparency; and
- c) the  manner  in  which  the  Government  is  collaborating  with  industry  stakeholders  and academia to foster a conducive environment for technological innovation and growth?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI JITIN PRASADA)

(a) to (c):   Digital India, the flagship programme of the Government of India, was launched in 2015 with the aim to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.  The  digital  empowerment,  inter-alia,  included  and  focused  on  universal  digital literacy, universally accessible digital resources, availability of all documents/ certificates on cloud,  availability  of  digital  resources  /services  in  Indian  languages,  collaborative  digital platforms for participative governance and portability of all entitlements through cloud.

To promote digital literacy, skills and awareness to bridge the digital divide and to promote eGovernance  and  digitisation  of  government  services  across  rural  and  urban  areas  the following initiatives have been taken:

- i. Through Common Service Centers (CSC's) across the country, various digital literacy courses like: Basic Computer Course (BCC) and Basic Course in IT (BCIT) are being offered  for  rural  citizens.  These  courses  are  available  at  a  nominal  cost  with assessment  and  certification  from  esteemed  institutes  such  as  Indian  School  of Business  (ISB)  and  National  Institute  of  Electronics  &  Information  Technology (NIELIT).
- ii. Government of India implemented a scheme titled 'Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta  Abhiyan  (PMGDISHA)'  to  usher  in  digital  literacy  in  rural  India  (one person  per  household).  As  on  31 st March  2024,  around  7.35  crore  candidates  were enrolled and 6.39 crore were trained, out of which 4.78 crore candidates were certified under  the  PMGDISHA  Scheme.  The  Scheme  was  implemented  by CSC  eGovernance  Services  India  Limited  through  4.39  Lakh  Common  Service  Centres spread across 2.52 Lakh Gram Panchayats across the country.
- iii. Pradhan  Mantri  Kaushal  Vikas  Yojana  (PMKVY)  is  the  flagship  scheme  of  the Ministry  of  Skill  Development  and  Entrepreneurship  (MSDE)  implemented  by National Skill Development  Corporation  (NSDC).  The  objective  of  this  Skill Certification  scheme  is  to  enable  Indian  youth  to  take  up  industry  relevant  skill training  that  will  help  them  in  securing  a  better  livelihood.As  on  26 th July  2024, around 13.22 lakh candidates have been trained and out of which 5.97 lakh candidates have been certified under the PMKVY Scheme.
- iv. National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT), an autonomous scientific  society  under  the  Ministry  of  Electronics  &  Information  Technology (MeitY) is imparting various digital literacy/skills programmes through its 52 centres along  with  more  than  700  accredited  institutes  and  more  than  9500  facilitation centres.A  total  of  25,50,555  candidates  trained/skilled  by  NIELIT  in  various  Long Term Formal & Non-Formal, Short Term courses including Digital Literacy courses in the last 3 years .
- v. For promoting digital education and facilitating students, teachers and parents across the country, DIKSHA platform has been implemented. The platform is free and open for use by anyone. As on 22 nd July 2024, 549.71 learning sessions have been imparted using  DIKSHA.  It  has  achieved  17.77  crore  course  enrollments  and  14.24  crore course completions. As on date, 1.71 crore users are registered and out of this, 25.36 lakh users are from Uttar Pradesh. The platform is used significantly by the teachers.
- vi. SWAYAM PRABHA -32 free direct to home TV channels are devoted to telecast high quality educational programme. Swayam Prabha hosts new content daily for at least (4) hours. This gets repeated 5 more times in a day, allowing students to choose the  time  of  their  convenience.  The  channels  are  up-linked  from  Bhaskaracharya National Institute  for  Space  Applications  and  Geo-Informatics  (BISAG-N),  an institution of MeitY.  The contents are provided by National  Programme  on Technology Enhanced  Learning  (NPTEL),  IITs,  UGC,  CEC,  IGNOU,  NCERT  and NIOS.
- vii. DigiLocker has been rolled out to facilitate paperless governance in the country and to help common citizens store and share their public documents with ease. DigiLocker has on boarded 30 crore users and it has made available 675 crore issued documents.
- viii. Unified  Mobile  App  for  New-Age  Governance  (UMANG)  is  providing  2000+ government services from 200+ Departments. These services are available to citizens of India across the country in 23 languages. The platform is free and open for use by anyone.
- ix. My Scheme has been made operational to provide the information to common citizens in  personalized  and  profile  manner.  510+  central  government  schemes  and  1890+ State government schemes have been on boarded at the platform.
- x. E-Sanjeevani, a national telemedicine service, is providing tele-medical consultation to  common  citizens.  The  platform,  as  on  25  July  2024,  has  served  27.28  crore patients. It can serve 4 lakh patients daily.
- xi. LokOS  is  playing  a  crucial  role  in  realizing  National  Rural  Livelihood  Mission's (NRLM) vision of empowering Self-Help Groups (SHG) through digitization. LokOS helps  in  maximizing  returns  on  the  savings  of  SHG  members  and  facilitate  easy financial  assistance  for  sustainable  livelihood  development  at  the  grassroots  level. LokOS has mobilized 10+ crore households and onboarded 91.6 lakh SHGs.
- xii. eTaal  (Electronic  Transaction  Aggregation  and  Analysis  Layer ) shows  that  on  an average 94.5 crore transactions are facilitated through electronic delivery of services. Out  of  94.5  crore,  4.5  crore  daily  average  transactions  are  facilitated  by  state government  projects.  The  platform  is  used  to  monitor  the  progress  of  electronic service delivery across the country.
- xiii. Digital Village Project: MeitY thorough, CSC-SPV has implemented 'Digital Village Pilot  Project'  to  provide  education  services,  health  services,  skill  development services,  solar-powered  street  lights,  and  financial  inclusion  services  along  with government-to-citizen services and business-to-citizen services in 700 villages across the country (one village from each district of States and Union Territories (UTs)).

MeitY has undertaken various initiatives and measures to promote a technology-led startups and innovation ecosystem in the country. Some of the major initiatives are:

- (i) TIDE 2.0 Scheme: Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs  (TIDE 2.0)  Scheme was initiated in the  year 2019 to promote tech entrepreneurship through financial and technical support to incubators engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, Block-chain, Robotics etc.  The scheme aims to provide  comprehensive  support  to  tech-startups  in  seven  thematic  areas  of  National concern  by  leveraging  emerging  technologies.  The  Scheme  is  being  implemented through 51 incubators through a three-tiered structure with an overarching objective to promote  incubation  activities at institutes  of  higher  learning  and  premier  R&D organisations. The scheme is envisaged to provide incubation support to approximately 2,000 tech start-ups over a period of five years.
- (ii) MeitY Startup Hub (MSH):A nodal entity to interconnect deep tech startup infrastructure pan India a 'MeitY Start-up Hub' (MSH) has been set up under MeitY. MSH is assisting incubators and startups improving their scalability, market outreach, etc. and has also established partnerships with various stakeholders paving the way for an  economy  built  on  innovation  and  technological  advancement.  MSH  has  seen  a consolidation of over 4550 startups, 460 incubators, 452 mentors, 22 accelerators and 43  state  of  the  art  Centres  of  Excellence  (CoEs),  successfully  conducted/  being conducted  143  challenges  in  different  technology  areas  encouraging  development  of innovative products / services to address current and pressing challenges.
- (iii) GENESIS  (Gen-Next  Support  for  Innovative  Startups):  MeitY  has  envisaged  an umbrella program GENESIS (Gen-Next Support for Innovative Startups) for 5 years to discover, support, grow and make successful startups in Tier-II and Tier-III cities with emphasis on collaborative engagement among startups, government, and corporates for promoting digitization based on the principals of inclusivity, accessibility, affordability, leading to  growth in  employment and economic outputs. GENESIS envisages further scaling up and sustaining the tech ecosystem especially to discover, support, grow and make successful startups. The platform envisages impacting and consolidating 10,000+ tech start-ups over the course of the next 5 years to pave the road for an equal startup ecosystem.

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