Departments asked to finalise plans for Digital India

Odisha chief secretary GC Pati has directed the government departments to finalise plans for inclusion in the Digital India Programme,

The vision of Digital India aims to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The three key areas of the programme include - infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, governance and services on demand and digital empowerment of citizens.

"You are requested to go through the components which are covered under the Digital India Programme and take up the matter with respective ministries so that the plans /schemes will be prepared at the earliest. Also in your department, the areas which need to be brought under e-governance for the benefit to citizens may be prepared", Pati wrote to additional chief secretaries and secretaries of all departments.

The departments are asked to submit the finalized plans to the state IT (information technology) department for discussion in the apex committee meeting likely to be held on January 30.For supervision of the programme, a state level committee under the chairmanship of chief minister and a state level apex committee under the chairmanship of chief secretary has already been constituted. Apart from the chief minister the committee has ministers of five departments namely, finance, information technology, revenue and disaster management, housing and urban development and information & public relations as members.

While chief secretary is a member of the panel, IT secretary is the member convener. Among others, development commissioner, secretaries of ten departments, director general of National Informatics Centre (NIC) are members of the team. IT department is nodal department for the Digital India Programme.

The nine pillars of Digital India are broadband highways, universal access to mobile connectivity, public internet access programme, e-governance: Reforming governance through technology, e-Kranti- electronic delivery of services, information for all, electronics manufacturing, IT for jobs and early harvest programmes.

It may be noted that under the state ICT policy, every government department is required to earmark 2 per cent of their funds for IT spending.