The Modi government’s ambitious Digital India Mission is now going to get a new strength. The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved an allocation of Rs 14,903 crore for the expansion of this flagship scheme of the Modi government. The government said that the objective of this initiative is to promote digital initiatives in skills, cyber security, calculation of high capacity and make technology accessible to the people. Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “The budget has been allocated from time to time as per the requirement. We have made some changes in the scheme, for which approval was to be taken. ”
Digital India will get strength
“The Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the expansion of digital India programme. It will cost Rs 14,903 crore. The minister said that under the Digital India expansion, the work done in the past will be taken forward. The budget outlay has been approved for five years from FY 2021-22 to 2025-26.
IT professionals will get training
Under the project, 6.25 lakh IT professionals will be skilled and honed with new technology, the minister said. Also, 2.65 lakh people will be trained in information security under the Information Security and Education Awareness Phase (ISEA) program. Nine more supercomputers will be added to the National Supercomputing Mission (NCM) under the expanded Digital India project. 18 supercomputers have already been installed under NCM. The government had in March 2015 approved a proposal to install 70 supercomputers by 2022 at an outlay of Rs 4,500 crore under the NCM .
MSMEs will also get the benefit of DigiLocker
Vaishnaw said the DigiLocker app will be extended to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This will help them get loans and other facilities by authenticating documents on the app. He said that under the Digital India program, cyber awareness courses will be run for 12 crore college students. “The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team ‘ (CERT-In), which deals with cyber forensics, emergency response and cyber matters’, will be expanded. ”
Centres of excellence to be set up in universities
Vaishnaw said the National Knowledge Network, a network of 1,787 universities and Research and Development (R&D) institutions, will be developed in line with Digital India Infoways. He said, a Centre of Excellence will also be set up in this field for the use of Artificial Intelligence in initiatives related to agriculture, health and environment. Under the expanded Digital India programme, new programmes will be launched in the field of cyber security. The expanded programme also provides for funding 1,200 startups from tier-II and tier-III cities.
