The modern day technical advancement and large scale consumption of mobile phones as the consumer market, India is a country where awareness and literacy regarding the digital aspect of communication is almost necessary. Computers, internet and mobile phones have become a seminal part of our existence. Thus, the degree of familiarity with the technological and digital platform decides how effectively the communications of content, ideas, information can and entertainment takes place in this generation.
It is imperative to develop an effective and competent framework of digital organization, since the world is only a click away and information has been digitized and compressed. To get ready for the surge of digital transformation, India need to build its digital skills, beginning from digital awareness and education of its citizens. To stay well connected with the world and be in effective communicating developmental ideas and translating the vision of rapid growth into reality, digital literacy is must in today’s world.
Under the Digital India Campaign, the government has taken numerous initiatives to bring about digital literacy in the country. Some endeavors are:
(a) Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (DISHA):
National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) scheme has been initiated by the government in order to import IT training to citizens who are not literate in the IT sphere. This scheme aims at making target groups like Angawadis, ASHA workers, Sanctioned ration dealers, etc. IT literate and enable them to effectively and actively participate in the national development course of action, by augmenting their livelihoods through digital literacy.
(b) Digitize India Platform (DIP):
This is an initiative of the Union Government under the Digital India Program. DIP is an interface that provides digitization services for scanned images of documents or physical copies for any organization. This scheme aims at creating a digital repository of all existing content, which includes the certificates and degrees of people, in various formats and media in digitized pattern.
(c) Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT):
DBT was brought underway with the objective to identify beneficiaries and accurately target them by directly transferring funds into their account, doing away with any short of middleman in the process. It is an initiative to reform the delivery system of the government and ensure efficient, effective, non-duplicable, faster and simpler transfer of information/ funds in order to achieve the goals of ‘Maximum Governance, Minimum Government’. DBT promotes greater transparency and lesser frauds so as to make the government accountable and inspire more confidence of the people in governance.
(d) AADHAR:
AADHAR platform is one of the main pillars of the Digital India Platform. AADHAR number or the unique identity number is generated by using a person’s biometric specifications. This platform has the largest biometric based recognition system, and is ‘ a strategic policy tool for social and financial inclusion, public sector delivery reforms’, to ‘promote haste-free people centric governance’. Similarly, the AADHAR enabled payment system lets the customer use his/her AADHAR card as the identity proof and link the bank to AADHAR to carry digital payment activities. This model brings in force ‘financial inclusion’.
(e) Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM):
This app makes the bank transactions simple, swift and uncomplicated. It enables bank to bank direct transfer, which is done using a mobile phone.
(f) Argimarket App:
This app has been created to enable the farmers to stay undated with the crop prices in order to ensure best market for the sale of their crop and assess the market conditions beforehand. This app automatically traces the location of the farmer through GPS and fetched the market prices of the crops within a range of 50km. The app has been helpful in preventing the farmers from carrying out ‘distress sale’.
(g) Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA):
Launched by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, VISIKA is said to be ‘biggest digital transformation of country after independence’. The principle of VISIKA is to energetically connect the Higher Education Institutions and their students and encourage all payers and payees to use a ‘digitally enabled cashless economic system’ for their fund transfer.
To keep abreast of the evolutionary shifts that the modern age technical innovations bring with itself, it is necessary that individuals are provided with apt resources and information that would create awareness and make practical use effective and easy.
Educating people about various facets of socio-economic and developmental concepts is a step taken towards efficient and productive governance. The concept of financial and digital literacy is important in the present day scenario and India has already started moving towards realizing the value of digital and financial transformation an taping into the benefits from them.
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