New Delhi: An ambitious project of e-government initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been approved by the Union Cabinet. Union Cabinet had approved the Digital India project which has a total overlay of Rs. 1 Lakh crore.
This project had been aims to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically and help people gain benefits from the latest information and communication technology.
The project also aims to ensure that all villages in India have high speed Internet. Sources say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head the monitoring group of the project and will aim to complete the project by 2019.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Today the Cabinet has approved the Digital India initiative of PM Narendra Modi. The PM had promised to bring everyone under the umbrella of ‘Digital India’. India’s talent plus information technology are India’s tomorrow… This scheme will include projects of all ministries. The budget of this programme will go up to Rs 1 lakh crore. Already budget provision exists for various programmes. If there are more requirements, then it will be given consideration by the government.”
A Digital India Advisory Group will be formed and will be chaired by the Minister of Communications and IT. There will be an Apex Committee which will be chaired by the Cabinet Secretary and the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) or Committee on Non Plan Expenditure (CNE).
The Digital India programme is a transformed version of the already running National e-Governance Plan. The project aims to provide thrust to nine pillars identified as growth areas. These pillars include — broadband highways, everywhere mobile connectivity, Public Internet Access Programme, e-Governance, e-Kranti (which aims to give electronic delivery of services), information for all, electronics manufacturing, IT for Jobs and early harvest programmes.
All central government ministries and departments will come up with their individual projects that can be delivered to public using ICT like health services, education, judicial services etc under the Digital India programme. Government will prefer to adopt Public Private Partnerships (PPP) wherever feasible for rolling out Digital India programme.
Bureau Report
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