Here are the digital initiatives announced in Budget 2017

Promotion of digital economy is an integral part of govt's strategy to weed out black money, says FM

BharatNet

The government stepped up its allocation for BharatNet to Rs 10,000 crores to connect more than 1.5 lakh gram panchayats with Wi-Fi access in 2017-18. This will help achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s  Digital India mission and help reach rural areas, enabling digital transactions, education and skilling. It still will be short of its 2.5 lakh GP target.

Digital payments

Government will promote use of BHIM app by offering incentives to both users and merchants. It will also push banks to introduce 10 lakh PoS systems by March and 20 lakh Aadhaar Pay PoS systems by September. This will help it meet its target of 2,500 crore digital transactions in 2017-18.

Local electronics manufacturing

India has got 250 investment proposals for electronics manufacturing in the last two years. Arun Jaitley has earmarked Rs 745 crore as incentives to promote India as a global hub. He has increased duties on PCBs for smartphones, while reducing duties on biometric scanners for digital payment units. This will increase local manufacturing and reduce costs of devices for merchants and users.

Skill development

The government plans to launch an online education platform SWAYAM with 350 courses that will act as virtual classrooms. Students will be able to participate in discussions, take tests and earn grades. SWAYAM will also be accessible through DTH channels. This will help the government address the lack of high quality teaching for millions of Indian students.

Banking backbone

The government is looking to get primary agriculture credit societies (PACs), crucial for loan disbursements in rural areas integrated with the backend of district central cooperative banks. It would take Rs 1,900 crore to get the 65,000 PACs online. The integration would help government to provide subsidies directly to farmers at their marketplaces. 

Tech in governance

The government has increased budget provisions under MNREGA to Rs 48,000 crore, the highest ever allocation under the scheme. The increased budget will go into geo-tagging all MNREGA assets and putting them in the public domain. The use of satellite data would help in better monitoring and accountability of funds.