Recently our PM, Mr. Narendra Modi visited the top entrepreneurs of the Silicon Valley to strengthen the digital space in India. The government had sanctioned 1 Lakh Crore that aims to cover the citizens electronically. The initiative aims to provide government services online. The main points of discussion with the IT giants of the valley are as follows.
- Google had selected 500 railway stations for free WIFI and increase connectivity.
- Microsoft had decided to setup cloud servers on selected data centres and provide broadband connectivity to 5 lakh villages in India and make India its cloud hub Indian Data centres
- Facebook plans to connect everyone through internet.
- Qualcomm had decided to invest 150 mn US $ in IoT based start-ups.
Reliance Chairman Mr.Mukesh Ambani said his company would invest 2.5 lakh Crore accordingly to different digital India heads which have the potential to create employment for over 5 lakh people. He also announced setting up ‘Jio digital India Start-Up fund’ to encourage young entrepreneur who are setting up business focussed around digital India initiative.
Digital Locker facility will help the citizens to digitally store their important documents like PAN card, passport, mark sheets and degree certificates and will provide secure access to Government issued documents in dedicated personal storage space in the cloud to citizens, linked to citizen’s Aadhar Number. The advantage of this initiative is that it will reduce the administrative overhead of Government departments and agencies created due to paper work. It will also ensure that the citizens can access their important documents hassle free, anytime and anywhere.
I appreciate the steps taken by our honourable prime minister but at the same time I believe that these initiatives are meant to reach only a small number of the total population. For example how can this digital initiative be useful to a daily labourer, whose daily income is 30 Rs! How can a brick kiln worker who has no knowledge of computers access the e-locker facility. Another aspect of this initiative is that it will generate a lot of employment for engineering graduates and skilled workers.
There are villages in India that have acute power shortage. In that case what benefit can it do to the population living there? A building cannot sustain with a weak foundation. In countries like USA, the rural population is educated and are tech savvy. But the same is not true in India.
Therefore to make this initiative effective, government should spend resources in field of clean-tech and make the villages self sufficient in terms of energy. The villages should also be self sufficient in terms of educating its population and they should be computer literate. To eradicate urban poverty, they should be provided with subsidized homes with basic amenities. However this is only a beginning and I hope this will bring a positive change in the life of the last person of India.
