DIGITAL INDIA WEEK 2022

The Prime minister has inaugurated Digital India Week 2022 under the Digital India Program, to strengthen ease of doing business and ease of living. He also inaugurated a digital expo at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar.

This was the seventh anniversary of launching the Digital India campaign, a flagship program of the Central Government.

THEME: “Catalyzing New India’s Techie”

To transform the nation into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The Prime Minister launched multiple digital initiatives aimed at enhancing the accessibility of technology and giving a boost to starts up.

About Digital India

• The Digital India initiative was launched in 2015. It is a RS 1,13,000 crore flagship program of the Government of India.
• The vision of the scheme is to transform into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy.
• Core areas: Digital infrastructure as a core utility to every citizen of the country, governance and service on demand, and digital empowerment of the citizens.

The objective of Digital India

• prepare India for a knowledge future.
• Focus on transformation to realize IT (Indian talent) +IT (Information technology) =IT (India tomorrow)

Significance of the Digital India Campaign

• Accessibility of Government Service- example Passport Seva,

• Ending corruption: The Digital India campaign has helped to save Rs 2.25 lakh crore from going into the wrong hands in the past 8 years. Example GSTN portal
• Eliminating middlemen: Digital India has saved money for the common man by ending the network of middlemen.
• Transparency: digital linkages and transactions help transparency.
• Direct Benefit Transfer: In the last eight years, more than Rs 23 lakh crore has been transferred through Direct Benefit Transfer to beneficiaries. As one can see in the case of MGNREGA where wages are directly provided in the account of the beneficiary.

JAM TRINITY (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, Mobile): has provided maximum benefit to the poor and the middle class.

• Finding missing children: Digital India has helped missing children reconnect with their parents.
• Digital India has helped the government tackle the crisis arising out of the Covid pandemic: Cowin and Aarogya Setu are two mobile applications that helped provide 200 crore vaccine doses.
• Ending digital divide: Digital India has also helped to reduce the digital divide that exists between rural and urban India.

Challenges                

• Digital illiteracy and digital divide, poor digital infrastructure, low internet speed, lack of coordination among various departments, a threat to data privacy and net neutrality, and issues about taxation are various challenges in implementing the Digital India scheme.
• Cyber Crime – is a major threat to the people of India since there are fewer or no internet privacy laws and people usually get exposed to cybercrimes which decrease their trust in electronic mode.

Government Initiatives

• Digital India Bhashini: It is India’s Artificial intelligence (AI) led language translation platform. Bhashini platform will make Artificial intelligence and natural language processing resources available to the MSME sector, startups, and individual innovators in the public domain.
• Digital India Genesis: it is a national deep-tech startup platform to discover, support, grow and make successful start-ups in the tier3 and tier2 cities of India.
• My Scheme: It is a service discovery platform which is facilitating access to government schemes, it is a one-stop search and discovery portal where users can find a scheme for which they are eligible.
• Meri Pehchaan: It is a National Single Sign-In- service for government-run platforms that allows users to get rid of multiple varied sign-ins required across government platforms.???????

Achievements of the Digital India Programme

• Since 2014, more than Rs 23 lakh crore has been transferred to beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfers.
• Digital platforms like Aadhaar, UPI, Cowin, and Digilocker as examples of services that have contributed to the “ease of living” as the majority of citizens get services online without going to government offices or approaching middlemen.
• Digital India has brought the government to the doorsteps and phones of the citizens. More than 1.25 lakh Common Service Centers and Grameen Stores are now taking e-commerce to rural India.
• With the concept of the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC), free ration is ensured to more than 80 crore citizen
• Through the Co-WIN Platform, India has run the world's largest and most efficient covid vaccination program.

“Maximum governance minimum government” the dream of the Prime Minister can be shaped through digital India. With the help of public and private partnerships, favourable government policies, innovative reforms, demographic advantage, rising income, and the rise of India’s start-up culture, India can become the fastest-growing digital economy.

STATE’S STARTUP RANKING 2021

The third edition of Ranking of States on “Support to Startup Ecosystems” was released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Earlier, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry released an Ease of Doing Business Ranking, which is based on the Business Reforms Action Plan report 2020.

State startup ranking                      

The Start-up India initiative of the Government of India envisages building a robust Start-up ecosystem in the country for nurturing innovation and providing huge opportunities to budding entrepreneurs.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has been formulating the States’ Start-up Ranking Exercise since 2018.

The assessment plays a crucial role in easing the business environment for start-ups in the country.

Objectives            

• It helps to bring fore progress made by the States/ UTs for promoting the Startup ecosystem.
• It fosters competitiveness & propels the States and UT to work proactively.
• It facilitates States/ UTs to identify, learn and replicate good practices.

Classification - States / Union Territories are classified into 5 Categories:

• Best Performers
• Top Performers
• Leaders
• Aspiring Leaders
• Emerging Start-up Ecosystems

How about the Rankings 2021?

The participants were evaluated across 7 broad Reform Areas which is consisting of 26 Action Points ranging from Institutional Support, Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Access to Market, Incubation support, Funding Support, and Mentorship Support to Capacity Building of Enablers.

Result:

• Gujarat and Karnataka were selected as the Best Performers in the States category.
• Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, and Telangana  have won the Top Performers award among states category
• Jammu and Kashmir appeared as the Top Performer among UTs.

About Startup India Program

• It was introduced in 2016 as a call to innovators, entrepreneurs, and thinkers of the country to lead from the front in driving India’s sustainable growth and creating huge employment opportunities.
• The entrepreneurial portal had more than 65,000 startups registered, of which 40 attained unicorn status recently, bringing the total as of date to 90 unicorns.
• India is ranked third among the global startup ecosystem.

Challenges associated with startup initiative

• The underrepresentation of women and marginalized caste groups in the national startup ecosystem is one of the major challenges associated with startup initiatives due to multiple factors such as caste-based economic exclusion, urban-rural divide, and lack of access to quality education.
• Entrepreneurship continued to be highly concentrated in three megacities, namely, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi NCR. The concentration can lead to increased economic inequality.
• Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes’ share in the ownership of agricultural establishments including farming, livestock, and fishery were higher in comparison to the non-agricultural establishment.

The government initiated a Stand-Up India scheme to encourage entrepreneurial ships by facilitating bank loans between 10 lakh and 1 crore to at least one schedule caste or schedule tribe and at least one woman per bank branch for setting up non -agriculture enterprise.