With the onset of the 20th century, the entire world was ready to usher in the digital era where technology was about to revolutionize the way of living. As a part of the evolution of the world, digitalization introduced the concept of the Internet which facilitated access to information of every kind and made communication very easy. Unlike every other country in the world that started appreciating the benefits of digitalization a long time ago, the major contribution of digitalization could be observed in India much later. It was in 1986 that the Internet became accessible in India, yet was restricted only to the academic and research community. However, over the years, the general public started gaining access to the Internet by the year 2015, when the program of transforming India into a digitally empowered nation was undertaken.
Despite this initiative of elevating India to the status of a technologically progressive nation, the insurmountable barrier of the digital divide in India continued to be the dampener to this mission. The digital divide in India highlights the discrepancy between the demographics wherein one segment of society enjoys smooth access to modern technology, information, and communication systems but another is still deprived of these privileges. Usually, the concept of the digital divide prevails between the population dwelling in urban areas and rural areas, and the highly progressive countries and the ones which are still underdeveloped.
To bridge this digital divide, India has adopted several programs. Let us take a look at some of these initiatives:
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan
In this scheme designed by the Indian government, the main motto is to foster digital empowerment of women to make them proficient enough to use different digital devices for their personal, commercial as well as educational purposes. It is a part of the ‘Digital India’ program which mainly targets the rural population of India with a specific focus on the marginalized population, the women and the girls. As per the latest report of the year 2022, this digital initiative has already benefited around 6 crore families in rural India.
Unnati project – Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited
This scheme to bridge the digital divide in India has been launched with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited at its helm. This program seeks to ensure the distribution of computer and other tech resources for rural students who are financially impaired to afford digital privileges in their schools.
DIKSHA or Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing
With the help of this scheme, under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat program, the Indian government plans to reform all the Indian schools and bring them under the motto of “One Nation, One digital platform”. Launched in the year 2017, Diksha is that national platform, which works for digitalizing all the central government and state government schools from standard 1 to 12.
National Education Policy 2020
The mission of this campaign is to make India a superpower in terms of global knowledge. The main emphasis of this initiative is on digital education as a part of the academic curriculum in all Indian schools.
E- Paathshala
This initiative by the Indian government offers an all-inclusive digital innovation for students, parents as well as teachers. It is a web-based platform, accessible over both computers as well as mobile phones, which is a repository of a huge collection of e-textbooks. The overall collection of content on this platform is more than 3500 and that too in around 4 languages, which are Hindi, Sanskrit, English, and Urdu. The fundamental purpose of this initiative is to educate the students, their parents, and teachers about the benefits of studying over the digital medium as well as emphasize that the process of digital involvement can make every stakeholder tech-savvy which is immensely important in this increasingly growing competitiveness across the globe.
Digital India initiative
In July 2015, the scheme of Digital India was officially inaugurated by the Indian government with the intent of mass exposure to Internet usage among the citizens. The core idea of this initiative was to extend the accessibility of the Internet to all Indian households and introduce online infrastructure to every field of work, thereby nudging India towards digital empowerment.
BHIM – UPI portals for E-payment
To increase digital literacy amongst Indians and bring everyone under the single identity of an electronically and technologically advanced population, the Indian government introduced the provision of digital payments or E-payments all over the country. With the Bharat Interface for Money application, making payments across the country has become simple with the Unified Payment Interface or UPI number. Instead of having to carry cash everywhere, this e-payment portal is like a cashless blessing for people to make payments everywhere they want with just a single click of a button on their mobile devices. When the monumental endeavor of demonetizing India was taken by the Indian government, it proved to be quite challenging for rural citizens to get accustomed to this new mode of payment. However, with the unwavering determination to bridge the digital divide in India, these E-payment platforms, focused on their steady goal of enlightening the Indian citizens about the benefits of the Internet in India in daily life and reaped the results as expected.
These initiatives of the Indian government for the digital empowerment of Indian citizens have kick-started the nation’s journey toward a major technological revolution. With the multiple platforms propagating the importance of digital all over the country, most of the Indian population has now gained their acquaintance with technology. The recent COVID-19 pandemic, which was an unfortunate event for the entire world, acted like a trigger that suddenly caused a major digital awakening for Indian citizens. Be it the online classes for the students, the E-Health facilities for the patients, or the shifting of the business models to accommodate work-from-home facilities, every development was evidence of India’s progress. To conclude, the relentless efforts by the Indian government and the receptivity of the Indian citizens collectively helped to bring to bridge the barrier of the digital divide in India, which, in the years to come, will make the nation a force to be reckoned with all across the globe.
