Digital bridge to growth; Know about major apps launched by Central Government

Digital bridge to growth; Know about major apps launched by Central Government

Digital is more than just using technology. It includes the use of technology to transform businesses, organisations, and governments in order to improve experiences, facilitate communication, and streamline tasks. India, which was striving its way through many difficulties in order to provide good education, food, employment, and health facilities to all, dared to dream big and make India a ‘Digital India’.

Digital India giving citizens digital empowerment

Digital India was officially launched on July 1, 2015, with the government’s primary initiative to create an empowered digital economy in India. The program’s vision focuses on three areas- building digital infrastructure, providing government and services on demand, and giving citizens digital empowerment.

The move to digital has been primarily about transparency and reach for the government, bringing resources and services from the healthcare, education, and finance sectors to India’s rural residents. These government efforts represent a significant paradigm shift in the form of governance and delivery of services or schemes.

A broad effort called “Digital India” includes several government ministries and departments. It combines a wide range of concepts and ideas into a unified, all-encompassing vision so that each one can be implemented as a component of a bigger objective. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology serves as the overarching coordinator of Digital India, implemented by the entire whole government.

The Digital India drive is a visionary project of the government to transform India into a knowledge-based economy and digitally empowered society, with effective governance for citizens. However, there were many obstacles in the way of its successful execution, such as digital illiteracy, poor infrastructure, slow internet, a lack of coordination between several departments, taxation-related issues, etc. In order for this programme to reach its full potential, these difficulties were also addressed.

With the aim to provide various services in a digital mode, various applications have been launched. Here are some of the major apps that the government has launched over the years.

1. START UP INDIA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the initial announcement of the campaign during a speech on August 15, 2015, from the Red Fort in New Delhi. This initiative’s action plan focuses on allowing startups to network, access free tools, and resources, and participate in programs and challenges. Its objective is also to create a single point of contact for the entire startup ecosystem and enable knowledge exchange.

2. MYGOV: The platform was created for citizen engagement in order to encourage the citizens to actively participate in the governance and development of their nation. In order to crowdsource governance ideas from citizens, it aims to establish a common platform for Indian citizens.

3. UMANG: It provides a single platform for all the citizens to access pan India e-Gov services ranging from central to local government bodies.

4. SWACHHATA-MOHUA: An initiative of the Swachh Bharat Mission in association with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, enables a citizen to post a civic-related issue (eg; a garbage dump) which is then forwarded to the city corporation concerned and thereafter assigned to the sanitary inspector of the particular ward.

5. AAROGYA SETU: Aarogya Setu is a mobile application developed by the government to connect essential health services with the people in the combined fight against COVID-19.

6. BHIM: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) created the BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) mobile payment app, which is based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). In honour of B. R. Ambedkar, it was introduced on December 30, 2016, with the goal of facilitating e-payments made directly through banks and promoting cashless transactions.

7. ENAM: A pan-Indian electronic trading site called ENAM APP-National Agriculture Market (NAM), which is supported by the government, connects the current mandis to provide a unified national market for agricultural products. The mobile app’s goal is to make it easier for traders to place remote bids and for farmers and other stakeholders to receive arrivals and price-related information on their smartphones.

8. MAUSAM: In order to give seamless and user-friendly access to weather products, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), developed the MAUSAM mobile application. Users can obtain radar photos, observed weather, and forecasts.

9. AYUSHMAN BHARAT: Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) is a flagship programme that covers more than 10 crore poor and vulnerable recipient households with secondary and tertiary care treatment from accredited public and private hospitals without the need for payment in cash. The National Health Authority (NHA) is the supreme body in charge of carrying out Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY.

10. AGRIMARKET APP: The mobile application has been developed with an aim to keep farmers abreast with the crop prices and discourage them to carry-out distress sales. Farmers can get information related to the prices of crops in markets within 50km of their own device location using the AgriMarket mobile app.

11. E-PATHSHALA: Developed by NCERT, e-Pathshala showcases and disseminates all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals, and a variety of other print and non-print materials through the website and mobile app.

12. SOIL HEALTH CARD: It aims at promoting Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) through judicious use of chemical fertilisers including secondary and micronutrients in conjunction with organic manures and bio-fertilisers for improving soil health and productivity.

13. PM SVANidhi: The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi), for providing affordable loans to street vendors. It incentivises digital transactions by street vendors.

14. JALDOOT: Launched on 26th September 2022, aims to enable Gram Rojgar Sahayak (GRS) to measure the water level of selected wells twice a year (pre-monsoon and post-monsoon). In every village, an adequate number of measurement locations (2-3) shall need to be selected. These will be representative of the groundwater level in that village.

Agritech, health tech, smart cities, e-governance, retail management, and seamless banking and payment solutions are just a few of the emerging interventions that are based on Digital India, which has been building the infrastructure for years.

 

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