Satish has just got into his 9th class and he knows he needs the most important certificate at this point in life. He went to the District information Center, he took the help of the clerk uncle as he called him to fill the form and gave it to him. He was told to come in the evening and pick up the certificate.
Late evening he shows the community certificate to his dad who is surprised that it was so easy and wondering how tough it was for his elder son some 5 years ago. Earlier in the day he had accessed the online registration of his land documents and they were in the pipeline and he was happy he needn’t go around post and pillar to get his details about the property he was considering to purchase.
Come to think of such things, the passport application has become seamless and it was a breeze last week for his nephew who came from the nearby town to appear at the Passport Information office. Surprise the Passport had arrived before he left to his hometown after 4 days and he picked it up the next day.
The AADHAR card has come to be the center of all this citizen centred initiatives. The neighbourhood colonies are now availing their PDS from the ration shop with such rationing only to be used by genuine users. The GPS and MIS systems in place has now made it easy to track the movement of goods for public distribution and also gets the realtime data so that there is logistics in full control.
Elsewhere the roll out of the GST and computerisation and digitisation of the toll booths and commercial check posts has now made the transport of goods seamlessly possible across the country.
Now even the issuing of license and other RTO works have become online and it’s just very simple with the online systems in place and no touts to work with.
The best part is the IRCTC becoming fast and agile and the booking of tickets becoming a breeze. The ticket booking status has become commonplace with the social added to the ticketing procedure.
The citizens today can keep tab /track of their ward / constituency development activities on their mobile phones. The citizen connect initiative has the financials very clearly marked and the work in progress being very clearly laid out for the citizens to take action if there is a delay.
The police connect data has the details on the policemen responsible for areas and there has been dramatic decrease in law and order issues and also the centralised police database which was long pending has changed the way the police work at the state level and the national level not to mention the way they work at the local level.
The Information highway right from the panchayat level to the prime minister’s office is today very transparent and when it started with the open attendance system it has become all the more accountable for whatever the citizen is paying in taxes.
The centralised Road transport digital initiative has made the e-checkpost work efficiently and also book road offenders without an opportunity to briber police and the offences are tagged on the social media too making them little conscious of what they are upto.
Now there are no long queues outside govt offices and the govt is becoming effective digital governance platform with the help of a lot of companies and individuals like Intel and making it happen for the citizens and the govt is now making it easier for the citizens to see the result of their hard work and also see for themselves how their hard earned money as taxes is being spent.
The rural folk are the happiest since now every one has a bank account and that started off the credit revolution to needy individuals and agriculturalists, since they can be given the cash transfer effectively and there is no spill in the value chain especially when it comes to relief and subsidies. This has made the subsidy bill go down drastically since its only the deserving set of people being paid and cutting a whole chain of intermediaries.
(Unveiling of Digital Skills India in Dec last year. Pic courtesy: http://www.techvorm.com/ )
All these at the village level were achieved through the Intel’s Digital Skills for India’ programme where in the villagers were made ready for the oncoming digital world. Now everyone is getting impacted to the digital India that the Govt wants. The village has become more healthy and more clean with the digital literacy catching up with the villagers and the kids participating in full enthusiasm.
Satish had thought this was all a dream come true since he has always been hearing that in India the corruption will rule forever and for once he was proved wrong and how.
A #DigitalIndia is now a reality and its happening under the aegis of Intel, powering the entire generation… and changing it for the better.
I am sure our people had the foresight when they said ‘Vasudeva Kutumbakam’ so very early and probably digital is making it happen more so than ever before making the world one family.
Whoever would have thought if we could do all these in a click of a button or a talking in their language with a Micromax tab.
Senthilkumar