India, 10 years down the line, will be a country where every person will have access to broadband, and all public services will be delivered using mobile and broadband, for example tele-medicine and tele-education. Everyone will be able to conduct online financial transactions using their digital identity, mobile and bank account. In other words, India will largely become a cashless society. Pe
The new online repository for citizens holding Aadhaar cards seeks to “empower residents by providing them with Digital Locker on the cloud”. This online storage facility would facilitate over 81.78 crore citizens across the nation. The site’s resources states that document issuers such as the CBSE and the Income Tax
Citizen participation is a must for smart cities. Only when citizens pay for the services, be it waste disposal and recycling, water or electricity, a city can be made viable and livable. The urban local bodies must generate their own resources for financing development work. This was highlighted by Alok Ranjan, chief secretary, Uttar Pradesh, at the NextGen Cities Conclave organised by Governa
Eight years after the Mumbai terrorist attack where 164 people were killed and over 300 injured, Indian government is struggling to integrate databases of intelligence agencies with those of railways, airlines and banks, among others to analyse and preempt such events. Frustrated by slow implementation of the national intelligence grid (Natgrid), the ministry of home affairs has
With PAN (permanent account number) as reference the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is devising a single-window financial information database of taxpayers to profile their source of income and spending. The database will be set up later this year and will be fully operational next year. It is being named as the Income Tax Business Application (ITBA). It will help in
Prime minister Narendra Modi will formally launch the Digital India programme on July 1, said communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. The minister was speaking at a MoU signing agreement between industry bodies national association of software and services companies (Nasscom) and Indian electronics and semiconductor association (IESA) to speed up ‘make in India’ and Digi
On a cold February night in 2012, Ramesh Kumar Yadav had a visitor at his home in Tardeeh village, Allahabad. He was fast asleep and was woken up only by a persistent knocking on his door. A mother of a four-year-old was banging his door, demanding withdrawal of money, which she had deposited with him. Yadav worked as a business correspondent for Bank of Baroda and the woman needed immediate me
The discussion on smart cities started off with a bang about a year ago, with the ascent of the NDA-II to power. There were expectations of a magical package with a financial bonanza. After deliberations over the framework of the programme to succeed the Jawaharlal Nehru national urban renewal mission (JnNURM), which lapsed in March 2014, the cabinet approved the Mission for Sma
The third and fourth phases of the cable television digitisation project have been given a fresh lease of life. The ministry of information and broadcasting through a recent notification extended the deadline for both phases. The third phase will cover all urban areas, while the fourth phase the entire country. In the second phase of the project, four metros and 38 other cities switched from an
Ever since coming to power, the NDA has announced many new mega plans as well as fast-tracked many existing plans. Digital India, Make in India and Smart Cities are among the new initiatives, while some others such as the financial inclusion programme and direct benefit transfer (DBT) have been fast tracked, in some cases with rebranding (as in jan dhan yojana). Many of these pr
Information technology (IT) has successfully reshaped our lives in ways unimaginable even a decade or two ago. The era of the telegram is now officially over and access to information is not just at our doorsteps but at our fingertips, due to the availability of communication tools like mobile phones, computers and the internet. It is no wonder then that technology has played a key role in heal
People’s voices matter in a democracy and soon this political dictum will move beyond the realm of rhetoric to become a reality. What can be seen as a clear attempt to establish a ‘deliberative democracy’, the department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) has been given the responsibility of gauging the mood of people on various issues. And this is not aimed at
The focus on one number ID will soon become a passé. At a time when many developed countries like the US are harping on one ID that aims to shape their social landscape, India has coined a new jargon. In fact, the Narendra Modi government, which went ahead with the Aadhaar or the unique ID project, is now looking at empowering individuals through three unique numbers, and improving citiz
The winds of openness are sweeping through the portals of government. Recently, the government has released a triumvirate of policies around open source software (OSS) for e-government applications, for hosting all government applications in an open source repository, and for opening up the application programming interface (API). All these policies are set to have a far-reaching impact on e-go
I am really happy that India’s de-facto CIO – department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) secretary RS Sharma – has started to talk about dematerialisation (demat) of various government certificates, issued to individuals, across the country. Speaking at a Governance Now roundtable recently, he pointed out that his department is already working
When the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) promised free Wi-Fi for Delhi in its election manifesto, many got into the calculation mode – how much would it cost? Different figures emerged by different camps in the runup to the February 7 Delhi assembly election. The detractors of AAP put up calculations on social media that showed the cost would cross Rs 2,000 crore. That was before the election. Post
E-governance is “easy governance”, “effective governance” and also “economic governance”, as defined by prime minister Narendra Modi. E-governance also paves way for good governance. Keeping this in mind, the country has implemented a slew of e-governance initiatives. However, lack of personnel with appropriate skills is one of the key challenges faced while
Various technological and social aspects that help in developing smart cities came up for a discussion at the NextGen Cities conference, held in Bhopal. Kailash Vijayvargiya, minister for urban administration, housing and environment, Madhya Pradesh, said a smart city should be developed in a democratic way. “The essential requirement of a smart city is that the four pillars of democracy
Governments worldwide are becoming more like businesses, stressing on efficiency of execution, measurability and trying to create value for the citizens the same way corporations have done for their stakeholders. Quite interestingly, businesses, of late, are trying to bring in what has traditionally been the goal of modern governance – transparency. In fact, ‘governance’ is ar
Isn’t it a bit ironic that while social media has been harnessed increasingly for achieving political changes, it has yielded little result when it comes to delivering social changes? In that sense, social media has so far been something of an oxymoron. Peoples’ engagement with social media also are inclined more on the political fronts than on the social fronts. Eve
