Empanelment of digital locker service providers by FY17-end

Close on the heels of notification of digital locker rules, the ministry of electronics and IT today said empanelment of digital locker service providers may come about by the end of the financial year.
"Today, digital locker is only provided by the government if we want that reach to expand to every issuer... There may be private issuers like banks or anyone... For that reach to go out to everyone, we need multiple agencies to be able to provide digital locker services," Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, ministry of electronics and IT, told reporters.
Stating that the empanelment or licensing of private digital locker service providers is likely to take place by the end of the financial year, he said, adding that the role of these service providers is to "establish digital lockers".

The ministry has already notified the digital locker rules that envisage creation of a digital locker authority.
"The rules have been notified, and the technical standards are being framed. Just like we currently have the controller of certifying authorities (CCA), controller of digital locker authority has been envisaged under the IT Act," he said.
DigiLocker is a platform for issuance and verification of documents in a digital way, eliminating the use of physical documents. DigiLocker is in sync with Digital India's vision of providing citizens a shareable private space on a public cloud and making all documents and certificates available on this cloud.

Citizens who sign up for a DigiLocker account get dedicated cloud storage space linked to their Aadhaar numbers. Once the DigiLocker account is created, organisations that are registered with Digital Locker can push electronic copies of documents and certificates (such as driving licence, voter ID, school certificates) directly into citizen lockers for their use.