Digital India programme e- kranti and its vision

Digital India programme e- kranti and its vision

The Digital India programme is a flagship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

E-governance initiatives in India took a broader dimension in the mid 1990s for wider sectoral applications with emphasis on citizen-centric services. The major ICT initiatives of the Government included, inter alia, some major projects such as railway computerization, land record computerization, etc. which focused mainly on the development of information systems. Later on, many states started ambitious individual e-governance projects aimed at providing electronic services to citizens.

Though these e-governance projects were citizen-centric, they could make less than the desired impact due to their limited features. The isolated and less interactive systems revealed major gaps that were thwarting the successful adoption of e-governance along the entire spectrum of governance. They clearly pointed towards the need for a more comprehensive planning and implementation for the infrastructure required to be put in place, interoperability issues to be addressed, etc. to establish a more connected government.

e-Kranti : National e-Governance Plan 2.0

The national level e-Governance programme called National e-Governance Plan was initiaited in 2006. There were 31 Mission Mode Projects under National e-Governance Plan covering a wide range of domains, viz. agriculture, land records, health, education, passports, police, courts, municipalities, commercial taxes, treasuries etc. 24 Mission Mode Projects have been implemented and started delivering either full or partial range of envisaged services.

Considering the shortcomings in National e-Governance Plan that included lack of integration amongst Government applications and databases, low degree of government process reengineering, scope for leveraging emerging technologies like mobile, cloud…etc, Government of India has approved the e-Kranti programme recently with the vision of “Transforming e-Governance for Transforming Governance”.

All new and on-going eGovernance projects as well as the existing projects, which are being revamped, should now follow the key principles of e-Kranti namely ‘Transformation and not Translation’, ‘Integrated Services and not Individual Services’, ‘Government Process Reengineering (GPR) to be mandatory in every MMP’, ‘ICT Infrastructure on Demand’, ‘Cloud by Default’, ‘Mobile First’, ‘Fast Tracking Approvals’, ‘Mandating Standards and Protocols’, ‘Language Localization’, ‘National GIS (Geo-Spatial Information System)’, ‘Security and Electronic Data Preservation’.

The portfolio of Mission Mode Projects has increased from 31 to 44 MMPs. Many new social sector projects namely Women and Child Development, Social Benefits, Financial Inclusion, Urban Governance, eBhasha…etc have been added as new MMPs under e-Kranti.

Vision of Digital India

• The vision of Digital India programme is to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.
• Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen
• Availability of high speed internet as a core utility for delivery of services to citizens
• Cradle to grave digital identity that is unique, lifelong, online and authenticable to every citizen
• Mobile phone & bank account enabling citizen participation in digital & financial space
• Easy access to a Common Service Centre
• Shareable private space on a public cloud
• Safe and secure cyber-space

Governance & Services on Demand

• Seamlessly integrated services across departments or jurisdictions
• Availability of services in real time from online & mobile platforms
• All citizen entitlements to be portable and available on the cloud
• Digitally transformed services for improving ease of doing business
• Making financial transactions electronic & cashless
• Leveraging Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) for decision support systems & development

Digital Empowerment of Citizens

• Universal digital literacy
• Universally accessible digital resources
• Availability of digital resources / services in Indian languages
• Collaborative digital platforms for participative governance
• Citizens not required to physically submit Govt. documents / certificates

Approach and Methodology for Digital India Programme are:

1. Ministries / Departments / States would fully leverage the Common and Support ICT Infrastructure established by GoI. DeitY would also evolve/ lay down standards and policy guidelines, provide technical and handholding support, undertake capacity building, R&D, etc.
2. The existing/ ongoing e-Governance initiatives would be suitably revamped to align them with the principles of Digital India. Scope enhancement, Process Reengineering, use of integrated & interoperable systems and deployment of emerging technologies like cloud & mobile would be undertaken to enhance the delivery of Government services to citizens.
3. States would be given flexibility to identify for inclusion additional state-specific projects, which are relevant for their socio-economic needs.
4. e-Governance would be promoted through a centralised initiative to the extent necessary, to ensure citizen centric service orientation, interoperability of various e-Governance applications and optimal utilisation of ICT infrastructure/ resources, while adopting a decentralised implementation model.
5. Successes would be identified and their replication promoted proactively with the required productization and customisation wherever needed.
6. Public Private Partnerships would be preferred wherever feasible to implement e-Governance projects with adequate management and strategic control.
7. Adoption of Unique ID would be promoted to facilitate identification, authentication and delivery of benefits.
8. Restructuring of NIC would be undertaken to strengthen the IT support to all government departments at Centre and State levels.
9. The positions of Chief Information Officers (CIO) would be created in at least 10 key Ministries so that various e-Governance projects could be designed, developed and implemented faster. CIO positions will be at Additional Secretary/Joint Secretary level with over-riding powers on IT in the respective Ministry.