Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday announced an outlay of Rs 4,795.24 crore for the Digital India Programme as part of the Budget 2023-24 on Wednesday.
This was a 37 percent decrease from last year's actual outlay of Rs 7,603.5 crore — the Centre had initially allocated Rs 10,676.18 crore to the initiative.
Digital India is a flagship programme of the Government of India — the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), to be specific — with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.
Last year, MeitY had received around Rs 10,676,18 crore for Digital India in the Budget, a 67.13 percent jump from Rs 6,388 crores the previous financial year. This was eventually revised to Rs 6703.5 crore.
This was especially significant considering the total budget allocation for MeitY stood at Rs 14,300 crore for 2022-23 as against Rs 9,581.25 crore in 2021-22.
As per the government website, the "Digital India programme is centred on three key vision areas". These are:
Digital Infrastructure as a core utility to every citizen
Availability of high speed internet as a core utility for delivery of services to citizens
Cradle to grave digital identity that is unique, lifelong, online and authenticable to every citizen
Mobile phone & bank account enabling citizen participation in digital and financial space
Easy access to a Common Service Centre
Shareable private space on a public cloud
Safe and secure cyber-spaceGovernance & Services on Demand
Seamlessly integrated services across departments or jurisdictions
Availability of services in real time from online & mobile platforms
All citizen entitlements to be portable and available on the cloud
Digitally transformed services for improving ease of doing business
Making financial transactions electronic & cashless
Leveraging Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) for decision support systems & development.Digital Empowerment of Citizens
Universal digital literacy
Universally accessible digital resources
Availability of digital resources / services in Indian languages
Collaborative digital platforms for participative governance
Citizens not required to physically submit Govt. documents / certificatesFirst Published: Feb 1, 2023 1:18 PM IST
