Six years of Digital India: Here is a look at how scheme has fared so far

Digital India was envisaged as an umbrella scheme that covered many aspects of making India a digital-first society. The initial outlay was Rs 100,000 crore in ongoing schemes and Rs 13,000 crore in new schemes. Here is a look at how the scheme has fared so far:

Broadband Connectivity

• 156,000 of the target of 250,000 village panchayats have been connected with broadband
• Cabinet has approved public private partnership mode for the roll-out of BharatNet project for broadband services in villages
• PM Modi has set a target of connecting 600,000 villages via broadband by May 2023

Universal access to mobile connectivity

• Reliance Jio’s entry in 2016 helped drive the adoption of digital content and services by rationalising mobile data costs
• Total Internet subscribers in India in January-June 2020 were 749.07 million

Public internet access 

• Aim to set up 250,000 common service centres, or one CSC in each gram panchayat
• Over 400,000 CSCs operational 

e-Governance

• DigiLocker: 66.37 million registered users, 4.32 billion issued authentic documents
• Pandemic sped up digital services use
• UMANG app (aggregates major govt services): 1,219 central & state govt services, 1,679.1 million department transactions, 253 departments integrated

Electronics manufacturing

• India imported electronic components of Rs 1.15 trillion in FY20, 37% came from China
• India’s PLI schemes, launched last year, aim to cut some of this 

IT for jobs

• India BPO Promotion Scheme has generated direct jobs for more than 40,000 people residing in tier II and III cities
• 38% of these are women 
• India IT industry added 138,000 people in FY21

Sources: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, DigiLocker Website, Nasscom