Digital India Initiative: Services launched so far under this programme

Digital India, the Government of India’s visionary initiative to take India towards its trillion-dollar dream, completes its fourth anniversary today. Taking the event into account, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Digital India was launched on this day 4 years ago ‘to leverage the power of technology and make technology more accessible’. The initiative, Narendra Modi says, has empowered people, significantly reduced corruption and improved public service delivery to benefit the poor.

“The Digital India initiative is a people’s movement, powered by people’s strength and their efforts to learn as well as innovate. I salute all those assiduously working to strengthen Digital India and wish them the very best for their future efforts,” added Narendra Modi.

Various other BJP leaders too are celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Digital India movement with congratulatory tweets and statistics supporting the same. “PM Narendra Modi had launched Digital India on 1 July 2015. The success of Digital India is an inspiring story of inclusion, transformation, growth and empowerment through digital technologies, which is now finding global resonance,” tweeted Ravi Shankar Prasad, Law and Justice, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology Minister of India.

What is the Digital India Initiative?

The Digital India initiative mainly consists of three components that form the fundamental characteristics of the programme: universal digital literacy, delivering all government services to citizens digitally, and development of secure and stable digital infrastructure. The initiative also aims to connect rural areas with high-speed internet networks.

Government of India schemes such as BharatNet, Bharatmala, Startup India and Standup India, Make in India, Sagarmala, industrial corridors, UDAN-RCS, dedicated freight corridors, and E-Kranti are interconnected with the Digital India initiative.

Some key achievements of the Digital India Initiative?

Here are some key achievements of the Digital India Initiative, according to BJP leaders and other industry insiders:

1. eHospital services have made it easy to take online appointments in 322 major hospitals. The eHospital application provides online registration, payment of fees and appointment, online diagnostic reports, enquiring availability of blood online, and so on.
2. 55 lakh post offices have been digitally connected and approximately 1 crore digital transactions take place in a day.
3. ServicePlus: A metadata¬based single unified eService delivery framework with completely configurable service definition, facilitating rapid rollout of any service by Government making them available in efficient and transparent manner.
4. BharatNet: Over 1.19 Lakh Gram Panchayats have been connected through Optical Fibre to provide seamless high-speed internet connectivity. The project aims to connect all 2.5 Lakh Gram Panchayats across India with Optical Fibre.
5. 65 Lakh Common Service Centers (CSC) are functional and 2.39 lakh gram panchayat’s have the presence of CSC.
6. Pensioners do not need to visit the bank branch which disburses their pension every year. They can produce Jeevan Pramaan digitally from any part of the world.
7. BHIM UPI: A fintech innovation of India that has transformed the digital payment ecosystem. It has made it possible to make payments using a simple and easy to use mobile app.

Here are some more achievements of the initiative as tweeted by Ravi Shankar Prasad.