Under the expanded Digital India scheme, which was cleared by the Union Cabinet on August 16, the Central Government will fund 1200 startups in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. The expanded Digital India scheme has a budget of Rs 14,903 crores, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed yesterday during a media briefing.
The Central Government is going to expand the digital document verification facility Digilocker, which allows you to store and access essential documents online, to MSMEs and other organisations.
“There are close to 40 crore people who have subscribed to Digilocker already. Through this system, small businesses can manage and safely keep their documents. Work has been progressing on the digital credit front as well. By the end of this year, you will get a good model. Just like how you have a model for digital payment, you will have one for digital credit,” Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
The full range of initiatives being planned under the expanded Digital India scheme are as follows:
- 6.25 lakh IT professionals will be re-skilled and up-skilled under the FutureSkills Prime Programme;
- 2.65 lakh persons will be trained in information security under the Information Security & Education Awareness Phase (ISEA) Programme;
- 540 additional services will be available under the Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) app/ platform. At present over 1,700 services are already available on UMANG;
- 9 more supercomputers will be added under the National Super Computer Mission. This is in addition to 18 supercomputers already deployed;
- Bhashini, the AI-enabled multi-language translation tool (currently available in 10 languages) will be rolled out in all 22 schedule 8 languages;
- Modernisation of the National Knowledge Network (NKN) which connects 1,787 educational institutions;
- Digital document verification facility under DigiLocker will now be available to MSMEs and other organisations;
- 1,200 startups will be supported in Tier 2/3 cities;
- 3 Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence on health, agriculture and sustainable cities will be set up;
- Cyber-awareness courses for 12 crores college students;
- New initiatives in the area of cyber security including development of tools and integration of more than 200 sites with National Cyber Coordination Centre.
Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the extended Digital India scheme will boost the homegrown digital economy, drive digital access to services and support the local IT and electronics ecosystem.
