Modi to inaugurate Digital India on July 1, India Inc chiefs invited

Government to sign agreement running into billions of dollars, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

Taking forward one of his marquee projects, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Digital India week on Wednesday. The event will be attended by some of the top corporate leaders of the country including Reliance Industries' Mukesh Ambani, Cyrus Mistry, chairman of Tata Sons, Wipro's Azim Premji and Anil Agarwal of the Vedanta group among others.

While addressing a press conference on Saturday, union minister for communications and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the government is expected to sign agreement running into billions of dollars in the areas of Digital India and electronics manufacturing. However, he did not share more details on the contours of the deals saying that they will be announced on July 1.

Digital India, which talks about taking Internet connectivity to the masses, is one of the pet schemes of the Narendra Modi government and the Prime Minister is expected to officially launch some of the key components of it such as Digital Locker, National Scholarship Portal and e-health under which people can book online appointments to government hospitals such as AIIMS. Airbus India CEO Peter Gutsmiedl, Bharti Enterprises chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, Adiya Birla group chairman Kumaramangalam Birla apart from foreign firm Nidec Corporation's vice chairman Mikio Katayama and Delta Electronics CEO Ping Cheng have also confirmed to participate in the programme that is expected to be attended by 10,000 guests.

"We have invited people from the field of technology, people working for common service centres, students and IT ministers from across the country. The huge crowd that we expect to be there will be a miniature representation of technical empowerment of people," Prasad said. He added that apart from the event in the national capital, 600 districts across 36 states of the country will be organizing various events in their centres to sensitise people about the ongoing activities under the Digital India platform.

Prasad said that in order to expedite the roll-out of the National Optical Fibre Network, which will act as the backbone of the ambitious Digital India plan, the government organised a meet of the state IT ministers earlier this month. Ten states have agreed to be part of the special purpose vehicle which will roll out the network, he said. Prasad added that the ministry also reached out to Microsoft's Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella along with Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy, but they will not be able to attend the event due to other engagements.