Lok Sabha Question No. 43 (STARRED), answered on 2016-07-20
Subject: Digital Governance
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: S.P. MUDDAHANUMEGOWDA

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. *43

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 20.07.2016

## DIGITAL GOVERNANCE

## *43.      SHRI S.P. MUDDAHANUME GOWDA:

Will the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology be pleased to state: -

- (a) whether adequate measures have been taken by the Government to achieve the goals of digital transparent and good governance and if so, the details thereof;
- (b) whether  the  Government  proposes  to  launch  new  IT  products  and  technologies  so  as  to strengthen the existing ones and if so, the details thereof; and
- (c)  the action taken by the Government to improve the telecom connectivity to villages so as to achieve the goal of digital and transparent governance?

## ANSWER

MINISTER FOR MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS  AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY   (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

- (a) to (c):    A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

## STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO *43 FOR 20.07.2016 REGARDING DIGITAL GOVERNANCE

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(a):    Yes,  Sir.  Digital  Technologies  act  as  catalyst  in  bringing  good  governance  by  ensuring transparency, accountability, efficiency and integrity in governance.  Government  of India has undertaken various measures to digitally transform our nation and create opportunities for all citizens by harnessing  digital  technologies  and  services.  Further,  Digital  Governance  bridges  the  gap  between digital have and have nots and brings in great thrust to promote inclusive growth including electronic services, products, devices and job opportunities.

The digital footprint has gone up through Aadhaar seeding and DBT. Aadhaar enrolment has increased to 103 crores in July 2016 as against 73 crores in Dec 2014. The Government is keenly pursuing JAM (Jandhan  -  Aadhaar  -  Mobile)  for  financial  inclusion.  The  broadband  subscribers  have  increased  to 15.11 crore in April 2016 from 8.57 crore in Dec 2014. e -Commerce has increased to more than USD 24.63  Billion  by  June  2016  as  against  USD  13.5  Billion  in  Dec  2014.  In  the  field  of  Electronics Manufacturing, investment proposals of Rs 1.20 lakh crores involving 179 units in June 2016 as against Rs 17390 crores involving 53 units in Dec 2014.

The e-Governance service transactions have increased to 62.5 crore per month in 2016 as against 29.4 crores per month in 2014. Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA) was launched in August 2014 in which 98.26  lakh  candidates  enrolled,  72.92  lakh  trained  and  33.15  lakh  certified.  Significant  increase  in interest  in  start  ups  in  cutting  edge  areas  of  IT  and  Electronics  including  IoT,  Data  analytics, telemedicine  e-education  etc.  has  been  observed.  Nearly  1000  start  ups  have  been  established  in  last year.  e-Visa  has  been  implemented  resulting  in  significant  growth  in  tourist  inflow.  The  citizen participation  has  increased  multiple  times  through  citizen  engagement  programs  like  MyGov.  The governments  services  are  being  delivered  at  the  doorstep  of  citizens  through  2.23  lakh  Digital  Seva Kendras (Common Services Centres - CSC) while increasing transparency, efficiency and reliability.

Under  the  Digital  India  programme,  'e-Kranti'  is  being  implemented,  which  envisions  making  all government services accessible to the common man, through Common Service Delivery outlets such as Digital Seva Kendras. Under e-Kranti, Mission Mode Projects covering wide domains including Health, Education,  Passport  Seva,  Trade,  Income  Tax,  Excise  &  Customs,  Corporate  Affairs,  India  Post,  ePolice,  Land Records, e-courts etc. are being implemented by various Central Ministries/Departments and State/UT governments.

Major Schemes / initiatives taken so far:

-  Agriculture: The major services of Agriculture MMP include Pesticide registration, Display on the Web of Seed Testing Results, Prices and arrival details, GIS based interface for price & arrival details, District level Agro-met advisories, Information on pesticides, Information on fertilizers/seeds, etc.
-  Land Records Major services include  real-time availability of land records, issuance of Record of Rights  alongwith  cadastral  maps,  issuance  of  certified  copy  of  deed,  issuance  of  non-encumbrance certificate, payment of stamp duties etc. 26 States have computerized their land records and providing computerized copies of Records of Rights on demand. These states have also placed their land records data in public domain.
-  E-Mandi - Government has launched e-mandi portal to make procurement of agricultural products smoother and provide competitive remuneration, especially for small and marginal farmers.
-  School Education Mission Mode Project: The  MMP is focused on Primary, Secondary and Higher Secondary education.  It will be a driving force for implementation of National Policy on ICT in School Education.
-  Digital  Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA): Digital  Saksharta  Abhiyan  (DISHA)  was  launched  in  August 2014 in which 98.26 lakh candidates enrolled, 72.92 lakh trained and 33.15 lakh certified.
-  National Knowledge Network (NKN): A multi-gigabit pan-India network for providing a unified high speed network backbone for all knowledge related institutions in the country. Currently, 1586 institutes are connected to NKN.
-  Digital  Locker :  e-Locker  is  an  ecosystem  with  collection  of  repositories  and  gateways  for  issuers  to upload the documents in the digital repositories.  Currently, 20.02 lakh DigiLocker Accounts have been opened.
-  Central Excise and Customs: Facilities  trade  and  industry  by  streamlining  and  simplifying  customs and excise processes and to create a climate for voluntary compliance.
-  MCA 21 :  The  major  services  delivered  through  MCA21  include  viewing  of  public  records,  issue  of certified copy  of  documents,  change  in  registered  office,  change  in  director(s),  annual  filings, application for change of name of a company, incorporation of a company and name allocation to a new company.
-  Passport Seva: Project  focuses on reforming Passport services in  India through simple, efficient and transparent processes from processing of Passport to delivery of services.
-  E-Tourist Visa -Tourists can apply visa online, pay visa fee online and receive E-Tourist Visa online. Around 8.45 lakh E-Tourist Visas have been issued since Nov, 2015.
-  e-Courts: The services delivered through the e-Courts MMP inter alia include Automated case filing, Automated  registration  of  case,  Automated  workflow  for  court,  Generation  of  automated  cause  list, Judicial service centers in all Courts, Automation of Case Management System, allocation of cases, etc.
-  Common Services Centers CSC 2.0: The CSC aims for establishing at least one CSC in each of 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayat (GP) level under Digital India Programme to deliver various G2C, B2C and B2B services online. 2,23,307 CSCs' have already been setup, of these 1,22,793 are at Gram Panchayat level.
-  e-District :    e-District  services  have  been  launched  in  621  districts  of  the  country,    which  delivers various types eGov services at districts.
-  State Data Centers (SDCs): ICT infrastructure in states to consolidate infrastructure, applications and services to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. 25 SDCs have been made operational.
-  State  Wide  Area  Networks  (SWANs): To connect  government  offices  /  institutions  at  all  State/UT Headquarters up to the Block level via District/ sub-Divisional Headquarters, in a vertical hierarchical structure with a minimum bandwidth capacity of 2 Mbps per link. Till date, SWANs in 34 states have been  made  operational.  30  states/UTs  are  utilizing  more  than  60%  of  bandwidth  of  the  existing  link capacity.
-  GI Cloud (MeghRaj): To  utilize  and  harness  the  benefits  of  Cloud  Computing.  National  Cloud  has been  set  up  as  a  state-of-the-art  secured  government  Cloud  to  provide  services  over  the  ICT Infrastructure to the  government departments. More than 400 user Departments are already accessing services  like  Infrastructure  as  a  Service  (IaaS),  Platform  as  a  Service  (PaaS),  Software  as  a  Service (SaaS), Storage as a Service (StaaS) of National Cloud.
-  eTaal: e-Taal provides quick view of the number of transactions performed by various e-Governance applications on a real time basis. The average monthly transactions are more than 62 crore.
-  Mobile  Governance: The  Mobile  Seva  platform  delivers  Government  services  over  mobile  devices using mobile applications installed on the user's mobile handsets. About 2521 Government departments and agencies at central, state and local levels have been integrated with the Mobile Seva platform.
-  Open Government Data (OGD) Platform: It  exposes  government  data  to  citizens  while  increasing transparency in government function. Under OGD, 26,759 resources across 101 Departments have been published which have been viewed more than 70 lakh times.
-  e-Hospital :  -  Online  Registration  System  (ORS):    It  includes  online  appointment  and  registration  by new  patients,  viewing  of  lab  reports,  checking  the  status  of  blood  availability  and  integration  with payment gateway (PayGov).  43 hospitals have been integrated.
-  Jeevan Pramaan :  Digital Life Certificate for Pensioners scheme known as Jeevan Pramaan 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.  Jeevan Pramaan is a biometric enabled digital service for pensioners. 16.30 lakh pensioners registered for the scheme.
-  Aadhaar & DBT - 103+ crore citizens enrolled. 27+ Crore Bank Account seeded with Aadhaar No. 74 Government Schemes are on DBT, where Rs. 1.2 lakh crores transferred through DBT.  36,500 crore cumulative saving have been done using DBT.
-  eSign framework :  This is an integrated service which facilitates issuing a Digital Signature Certificate and performing signing of requested document by authenticating the Aadhaar  card holder. 3 agencies, namely e-Mudra, CDAC and nCODE have been empanelled as e-Sign service providers.
-  National Voters Services Portal (NVSP) :  NVSP is a one-stop solution developed to assist voters and providing information related to elections, polling booths and electoral rolls.
-  Vikaspedia :    It  is  a  multilingual  collaborative  content  creation  platform  that  promotes  access  and sharing of e-knowledge for empowerment of underserved communities. Vikaspedia facilitates societal empowerment  through  provision  of  relevant  information  in  various  domains  including  Agriculture, Education, Health, Social Welfare, Energy and e-Governance in 22 scheduled languages of the country, besides English.
-  Biometric  Attendance  System  (BAS): Aadhaar  based  biometric  Authentication  for  attendance  to ensure  that  the  attendance  of  all  the  Government  employees  is  visible  in  real  time  on  the  common attendance portal. Around 2 lakh employees across 639 organizations have registered on BAS.
-  Localization  Projects  Management  Framework  (LPMF): To  undertake  surface  localization  of  the user interface and static information on a given website and internal localization of online applications including linked databases. Currently, the LPMF supports 6 Indian languages (Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Punjabi).
-  MyGov: MyGov aims to establish a link between Government and Citizens towards meeting the goal of good  governance.  MyGov  encourages  citizens  as  well  as  people  abroad  to  participate  in  various activities  i.e.  'Discuss',  'Do',  'Poll',  'Talk',  'Blog',  etc.  There  are  multiple  theme-based  discussions  on MyGov where a wide range of people can share their thoughts and ideas. 34.8 lakh registered users have participated in 49 groups, 478 tasks, 587 discussion themes and 219 blogs.
- (b):  Several new initiatives have been taken up by the government such as :
-  Unified Mobile App for New-age Governance (UMANG) :  UMANG (Unified Mobile App for new age Governance) is an initiative to build a common, unified platform and mobile app to facilitate single point  of  access  for  government  services  through  mobile.  Through  the  application,  citizens  can  access high impact pan India e-Gov services from the central Government, State Governments, local bodies and their agencies and, even those from private sector.
-  Government e-Marketplace (GeM): To facilitate on line procurement of Goods & Services required by various Government Departments / Organizations / PSUs. GeM will enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement. It will also provide the tools of e-bidding and reverse e-auction as well as demand aggregation to facilitate efficient procurement.
-  Rapid  Assessment  System  (RAS): RAS  is  a  continuous  feedback  system  for  e-services  delivered through various Digital India platforms and various e-Gov applications.
-  National  Scholarships  Portal  (NSP) :  The  portal  is  a  one-stop  solution  to  implement  end-to-end disbursement  of  the  scholarship  to the beneficiaries. The  process  includes  student  registration, application, approval and disbursement. 76 schemes of 22 Ministries/Departments of the Government are being on-boarded on the portal.
-  NIC e-Mail: The current E-mail infrastructure of NIC is being augmented to meet the requirement of providing e- mail services to 5 million Government users. The upgraded email infrastructure will enable the  scaling  up  of  the  E-mail  services  of  NIC  with  additional  features,  for  all  the  employees  of Government both at the Centre and State.  This service will have the latest E-mail architecture, design, performance,  and  deployment  features.  This  service  would  be  configured  in  a  manner  to  protect sensitive data with content filtering, virus protection, and encryption.
-  National Centre of Geo-informatics (NCoG): GIS platform for sharing, collaboration, location based analytics and decision support system for Departments. Currently, 8 applications across various domains are operational.
- (c): Government is committed to provide telecom connectivity to villages in rural and remote areas of the country  through  various  Schemes  being  implemented/planned  with  financial  support  from  Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The Schemes are as under:-:
- (i) National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project, renamed as BharatNet, which is one of the pillars of Digital  India  Programme,  is  planned  to  establish  a  network  infrastructure by connecting  all  Gram Panchayats (approx. 2.5 lakh) in the country through Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) and by using an optimal mix  of  underground  fibre,  fibre  over  power  lines,  radio  and  satellite  media,  for  providing  broadband connectivity by all categories of service providers on non-discriminatory basis.

The project is planned to be implemented in three phases.  Under first phase of the project, 1 lakh Gram Panchayats (GPs) is to be connected by laying underground OFC by March 2017. Under second phase, connectivity  will  be  provided  to  remaining  1.5  lakh  GPs  in  the  country  using  an  optimal  mix  of underground fibre, fibre over power lines, radio and satellite media, by December, 2018. A state- of- the-art network, future-proof network, including fibre between districts and blocks and with for 5G services and Internet of Things era with underground OFC in ring architecture, is planned to be completed by 2023.  As on 09.07.2016, Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) has been laid to 54,023 Gram Panchayats (GPs) with a total length of 1,25,642 km. Out of these, 7312 GPs have been tested with broadband connectivity.

(ii) 2199  mobile  towers  are  being  set  up  in  Left  Wing  Extremism  (LWE)  affected  States  with  a  total estimated cost of Rs.3567.58 crore. As on 11.7.2016, 2032 sites are functional.

(iii)   On  10.09.2014,  the  Government  approved  a  proposal  to  implement  a  Comprehensive  Telecom Development Plan for the North-Eastern Region (NER).  The Project envisages to provide mobile coverage to  8621  identified  uncovered  villages  by  installation  of  about  6673  mobile  towers,  installation  of  321 mobile tower sites along National Highways and strengthening of transmission network in the NER.

(iv)   It is estimated that there are about 55,000 villages in the country that do not have mobile coverage. Mobile  coverage  to  these  uncovered  villages  is  planned  to  be  provided  in  a  phased  manner,  subject  to availability  of  financial  resources.  Preparation  of  Detailed  Project  Reports  (DPRs)  for  providing  mobile coverage  to  uncovered  villages  in  Himalayan  States  (Jammu  &  Kashmir,  Himachal  Pradesh  and Uttarakhand) and Andaman & Nicobar Islands is in progress.

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