Marginalised people should get benefits of technology: IT minister Vaishnaw

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said digital divide should be bridged for digital inclusion to take place so that the marginalised people are not left out from technological development.

"Economic differences can still be bridged. If you don't bridge digital divide now, then it will be too late because every passing day, every passing hour that divide gets further widened," Vaishnaw, who holds the Railways, Communication, Electronics and Information Technology portfolios, said during the three-day 7th India Ideas Conclave, titled 'India 2.0 -- Rebooting to Meta Era'.

The Union minister said 30 to 40 years ago, the technological cycles used to be for a period of 10 to 15 years, which has shrunk now. The technological cycles are so small that by the time we catch up, things have changed, he pointed out.

"In this kind of atmosphere, how do we make sure that the people at the bottom of the pyramid (marginalised section) get the benefits of technology as people in Bengaluru do now?" Vaishnaw said.

"How do we make sure to reach out to them and see that they get a fair chance of competing in this world? How do we make sure that every child gets benefits of the technology in this world?" he said.

In this connection, he said the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focusing on Antyodaya', which roughly translates to inclusive development of the marginalised section.

"So our focus is to take technology to those sections. We have made huge investment. The BharatNet programme has reached two lakh panchayats. Lots of new technological experiments have been made," the Minister explained.

According to him, the country needs to master a few technologies at the earliest because it cannot afford to wait for the future and has to act immediately.

In this context, he underlined the need to grow the telecom technology where the country should be able to develop its indigenous expertise in 4G and 5G to make its 6G journey easier.

Vaishnaw also emphasised upon developing the country as a semiconductor hub and increase the existing 50,000 design engineers to 85,000 semiconductor talent pool over the next 10 years.

He also underlined the need to master the skill of designing devices.