Digital India: High on hype, low on planning, even less on funds

According the business leaders in IT sector, the Digital India initiative has the potential to give a huge push to hardware industry of the sector, but they are yet to see the blue print of the campaign elaborating the strategies of taking different steps which may help in promoting the sector.

“We have heard so many times Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad talking about opening of call centres in Tier -3 cities, but it hasn’t come to notice of the industry as which are the cities that have been identified for such purposes,” said Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, who is vice president at BIRD, the business & industrial research division of IMRB International, adding that there is no visible roadmap of the government for Digital India.

“There is no doubt that the Digital India concept is very impressive, but there are several black spots too in this campaign as it talks about bringing works of public amenities under digital platform, which is very good move, but the government has not yet unveiled its programme to make people computer literate en masse,” Bhattacharjee added.

Defending the objectives of the Centre behind Digital India drive, Telecom Ministry officials have said that there the project doesn’t need a roadmap. “It’s a self driven project in which government machineries are being utilized for imparting computer literacy to every section of the society, including farmers and even marginal workers,” a senior official in the ministry said.

He said, “The ministry will not prepare any roadmap for this project as it’s not needed. Those who wish to be a part of this movement, they have to come along of their own.”

 “The manufacturing sector is hit by decline in the demand of computers and other IT devices, which is a key component of Digital India drive. The government should release a roadmap to boost this sector as report of Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology devices (MAIT) has revealed that sale of total PC has gone down by 10 per cent, while the sale of phablets is up by 527 per cent. However, the phablet buyers are increasing in metro and tier-2 cities, but not in tier-3, tier-4 and rural areas, which is not a good indicator for the Digital India campaign,” an IT experts said.

Commenting on the row, Smart Chip & Syscom MD Sanjeev Shriya, said, “Though the Digital India programme has the potential to intensify the momentum for an empowered and knowledge-based economy by unlocking the true potential of India, there need to be a roadmap for it.”