Digital India Week 2022

• 05 Jul 2022

For Prelims: Digital India BHASHINI, Artificial Intelligence

For Mains: Digital India Vision of India, Technology Missions, Government Policies & Interventions, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Government

Why in News?

Recently, the Prime Minister has inaugurated the Digital India Week 2022 under the Digital India Programme, with the aim to strengthen Ease of Doing Business and Ease of Living.

• Theme: ‘Catalyzing New India’s Techade’.
  • To transform the nation into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.
• During the programme, PM launched multiple digital initiatives aimed at enhancing the accessibility of technology, streamlining service delivery to ensure ease of living and giving a boost to startups.

What are the Digital Initiatives?

• Digital India Bhashini:
  • Digital India BHASHINI is India’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) led language translation platform.
  • A Bhashini Platform will make Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) resources available to MSME (Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises), Startups and Individual Innovators in the public domain.
• Digital India GENESIS:
  • Digital India GENESIS’ (Gen-next Support for Innovative Startups) is a national deep-tech startup platform to discover, support, grow and make successful startups in Tier-II and Tier-III cities of India.
• My Scheme:
  • It is a service discovery platform facilitating access to Government Schemes.
  • It aims to offer a one-stop search and discovery portal where users can find schemes that they are eligible for.
• Meri Pehchaan:
  • It is National Single Sign On (NSSO) for One Citizen Login.
  • It is a user authentication service in which a single set of credentials provide access to multiple online applications or services.
• Chips to Startup (C2S) Programme:
  • The C2S Programme aims to train specialized manpower in the area of design of semiconductor chips at Bachelors, Masters and Research levels, and act as a catalyst for the growth of Startups involved in semiconductor design in the country.
  • It offers to mentor at the organisational level and makes available State-of-the-art facilities for design to the institutions.
• Indiastack global:
  • It is a global repository of key projects implemented under India Stack like Aadhaar, UPI (Unified Payment Interface), Digilocker, Cowin Vaccination Platform, Government e MarketPlace, DIKSHA Platform and Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission.
  • It will help position India as the leader of building Digital Transformation projects at population scale.

What is Digital India Programme?

• About:
  • It was launched in 2015.
  • The programme has been enabled for several important Government schemes, such as BharatNet, Make in India, Startup India and Standup India, industrial corridors, etc.
• Vision Areas:
  • Digital infrastructure as Utility to Every Citizen.
  • Governance and services on demand.
  • Digital empowerment of citizens.
• Objectives:
  • To prepare India for a knowledge future.
  • For being transformative that is to realize IT (Indian Talent) + IT (Information Technology) = IT (India Tomorrow).
  • Making technology central to enabling change.
    • On being an Umbrella Programme – covering many departments.

What are the Acheivements of Digital India Programme?

• Since 2014, more than Rs 23 lakh crore has been transferred to beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfers or DBT.
  • Digital platforms like Aadhaar, UPI, Cowin and Digilocker as examples of services that have contributed to the “ease of living” as citizens get services online without going to government offices or approaching middlemen.
• Digital India has brought the government to the doorsteps and phones of the citizens. More than 1.25 lakh Common Service Centres (CSC) and Grameen Stores are now taking e-commerce to rural India.
  • Similarly, property documents for rural properties are being provided by use of technology.
• With the help of One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC), free ration was ensured to more than 80 crore countrymen.
• Through Co-WIN Platform, India has run the world's largest and most efficient covid vaccination and covid relief program.

Way Forward

• India's digital revolution will cause a paradigm shift for India and its economy. With the help of public and private partnerships, favourable government policies, innovative reforms, demographic advantage, rising incomes and the rise of India's startup culture, India can become the fastest-growing digital economy.
• The digital revolution has already helped the Indian economy to become resilient to the changing time. In the future, India's digital economy is expected to support India achieve its goal of a USD 5 trillion economy.

Source: PIB