It has been a year and a half since the government launched the Digital India initiative, but the programme is yet to yield any major results.
A key objective of Digital India was to have broadband networks that span India’s cities, towns and 250,000 villages by end-2016, along with a system of networks and data centres called the National Information Infrastructure. The vision is grand and, if successful, it could transform citizen access to multimedia information, content and services. It will also give the government access to a great deal of information.
However, the country is nowhere close to achieving this target. According to a recent IAMAI report, India currently has only over 300 million internet users and another 200 million are expected to come online by 2017.
Moreover, just laying cables will not ensure that they will be used. It is communications and content, not empty pipes, that will drive network usage, and generating content is not the government’s strength. It will be an industry driven task. It will require a serious market strategy and an understanding of how solutions can be created, implemented and made available to people.
On similar lines, an innovative approach needs to be adopted to attain the objectives of achieving the eKranti, MyGovernance and Information for All goals of the Digital India programme. Industry experts say that almost every e-governance project that India needs has been successfully piloted somewhere in the country. The first step under Digital India should, therefore, be to identify these pilot projects, replicate them and scale them up. But for this too, there is a need for a creative and constructive partnership between the government and the industry
To its credit, the programme has been able to engage a number of large, medium and small players from diverse industries, which has the potential to drive inclusive growth for the economy. A beginning has been made, but there is still a long way to go.
