e-Governance Initiatives: Overview
e-Governance Initiatives: Overview
Question : e-Governance equals easy governance and good governance. Provide an overview of Indian e-Governance initiatives taken in recent times.
- Governance of India has accorded a high priority to Digital India Programme and the implementation of e-Kranti, an integral component of Digital India aims at transforming governance through e-governance
- e-Governance is associated with easy governance and good governance in the nation
- It is also economical governance
- Recent ICT advances have created e-governance which is a potent tool for good governance
Several e-Governance initiatives proposed by the government include the following:
i. MyGov
ii. Jeevan Praman
iii. Wi-Fi Hotspots
iv. BPOs in villages
v. e-commerce through post offices
vi. Aim is to foster a digitally inclusive governance ecosystem which provides necessary support to the government and is formulated in terms of policies, guidelines and frameworks with them
DeitY has also taken several policy initiatives such as the following:
- e-Kranti
- Open Source Software
- Open APIs
- Email Policy
- Use of IT Resources
- Collaborative Application Development
- Application Development and Re-Engineering for Cloud Ready Applications
- These policy initiatives have supported all Central Ministries as well as States and UTs for leveraging the benefits of emerging technologies
- New business models and revamping of existing models in an efficient, transparent and ethical manner are the central focus of these policy initiatives
- Government has also envisaged One Nation Full Mobile Number Portability from July 2015
- Government has also installed 2500 Wi-Fi hotspots in the nation during 2015-2016
- BSNL has also covered tourist places and cities such as the following with Wi-Fi hotspots:
- Taj Mahal-Agra,
- Hussain Sagar Lake & Charminar -Hyderabad,
- Sarnath-Varanasi,
- Sun Temple-Konark,
- Brihadeshwar Temple-Thanjavur,
- Hampi- Karnataka,
- Khajuraho, Jagnnath Temple-Puri,
- Nasik,
- Bangalore,
- Vijaywada,
- Bilarpur
- Gyansetu was also announced to bridge the digital gap; this is an internet based real time ICT system designed by C-DOT for providing e-services to rural and underserved sections of society
- It aims to act as a bridge between literate, high end communities and rural society by bringing knowledge to the villages
- Government has also taken up BharatNet in mission mode for connecting 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats and over 600 million rural citizens with around 100 mbps broadband for providing rural coverage for voice and broadband penetration
- Project is being carried out by BBNL, an SPV designed for this purpose
BharatNet will support the following services:
- Governance services
- Telemedicine and tele-education
- Financial Services
- e-commerce and e-entertainment
- It seeks to benefit people in remote and rural areas
Government has also proposed a project referred to as Network for Spectrum; this nationwide secure multi service and protocol converged next generation network is based on exclusive and dedicated triservices for the optical transport framework; it seeks to boost the efficiency of the Indian Army through the following:
- Enhanced Voice
- Data
- Real Time Video Services
Make in India has also been implemented in telecom sector in the following ways:
i. Imposition of basic Customs Duty of 10% on certain imported telecom products in Budget 2014-15 to provide a level playing field for the domestic manufacturers, and boost domestic telecom electronic manufacturing
ii. Inverted duty structure corrections
iii. In budget 2015-16, basic custom duty on HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) for use in the manufacture of telecommunication grade optical fibre cables was lowered from 7.5% to NIL to boost optical fibre manufacturing
- National Telecom M2M Roadmap has also been launched by Minister of Communications and IT for assimilating numerous M2M standards, outline perspectives and regulatory measures for increased proliferation of M2M
- International M2M setting, current communication technologies and standardisation activities are being adapted to different sectors of the Indian scenario
Facts and Stats
- Indian telecom sector attracted USD 295 in the year 2014-2015 as against 2013-2014(USD 1307)
- DoT has also constructed Spectrum auction this year raising highest ever auction proceedings of INR 109874 crore against approved reserve price of INR 80227 crore
- Indian telecom sector has added 64.4 million telephone connections from June 2014-2015; this is a number equalling the population of France
- India now has 1007.43 million telephones and is the second biggest telephone network in the world following China from which 423.42 are in rural areas and 584 are in urban settings
Teledensity in the nation is now 80.02% with the following numbers:
- Rural tele density: 48.78%
- Urban tele density: 149.34%
- India currently has 302.35 million internet connections which equals the population of the US
