Govt to appoint 'Chief Information Officers' to drive Digital India initiatives

These nodal officers at key ministries will ensure smooth implementation of the Rs 1 lakh cr programme

The government will appoint nodal officers at key ministries to ensure smooth implementation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious over Rs 1 lakh crore 'Digital India' programme.

The new posts of 'Chief Information Officers' (CIO) would be created in at least 10 key ministries to supervise the implementation.

Besides, a Digital India Advisory Group (DIAG) would also be created, which will be headed by Minister of Communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad.

"The positions of CIOs would be created in at least ten key ministries. Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) would also create four senior positions within the department for managing 'Digital India'," DeitY Secretary R S Sharma told PTI.

DIAG would supervise the implementation of the programme, advise the government on policy issues and strategic interventions necessary for accelerating the implementation of Digital India Programme across Central and State government ministries/departments, he added.

On the role of DeitY in the initiative, Sharma said all the initiatives under the Digital India programme will be coordinated by the Department.

"DeitY would provide its advice during the appraisal of the projects under the Digital India programme. This appraisal would cover issues relating to adoption of standards, utilisation of cloud and mobile platform, consideration of security aspects, etc," he added.

DeitY will also provide support to other departments in conceptualising, developing, appraising, implementing and monitoring respective mission mode projects (MMPs)/ e-Governance initiatives, he said.

DeitY has also created core ICT infrastructure for government departments across the entire country consisting of State Data Centres (SDC), State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), Common Service Centres (CSCs), State portal and State Service Delivery Gateways (SSDG) and Mobile Seva platform which can be used by all departments for delivering their services.

The Digital India programme, which aims to connect all gram panchayats by broadband Internet, promotes e-governance and transform India into a connected knowledge economy.

Analysts feel Digital India has the potential to be one of most transformative programmes in recent times.

"Not only would it impact citizen service delivery, it would also provide the much needed impetus to the economic growth given its focus on key social and industry sectors," PwC India Executive Director Rakesh Kaul said.

Not only IT/ITeS, telecom, electronics manufacturing sectors would be benefited from Digital India, but "we would see positive impact on other industry sectors as well, like Power Sector and Banking and Financial Services", he added.