Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a telling observation about his idea of India: “… every Indian must have a smartphone in his hand and every field must be covered by a drone”. This was a reaffirmation of his commitment that ordinary Indians must be empowered with technology. Digital India is a transformative programme to deliver that objective. He was equally clear that digital technology must be low-cost, developmental, inclusive, and substantially home-grown and it should bridge the digital divide and usher in digital inclusion.
After eight years of digital governance, there is concrete evidence to showcase this digital transformation. India today is home to more than 75 crore smartphones, 133 crore Aadhaar cards, more than 80 crore internet users, has 4G and is now accelerating towards 5G. Above all, it has among the lowest data tariffs in the world. India’s march is the result of PM Modi’s vision, which he shared at the launch of Digital India on July 1, 2015. He had said: “In this digital age, we have an opportunity to transform the lives of people in ways that were hard to imagine just a couple of decades ago. I see technology as a means to empowerment and as a tool that bridges the distance between hope and opportunity.”
Digital India solved some of the most difficult problems the country had been facing for decades. Ensuring delivery of government schemes to its beneficiaries without leakage or misuse remained a herculean task. The Jan-Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity has ensured that the poorest receive every penny of their entitled benefits. Financial benefits worth nearly Rs 23 lakh crore have been transferred using DBT technology in the last eight years. This has led to savings of Rs 2.22 lakh crore of public money. Read More at https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/digital-india-eight-years-on-narendra-modi-5g-aadhaar-7948202/?