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Take a look at the essential events, concepts, terms, quotes, or phenomena every day and brush up your knowledge. Here’s your knowledge nugget for today on 10 years of Digital India and India Energy Stack.
(Relevance: Government policies and schemes are an important part of the UPSC CSE exam, and previous years’ questions highlight their significance. In this regard, knowing about the schemes that are in the news is important for the UPSC exam prep. Digital India is an important topic for both prelims and mains, and understanding it in a broader context is highly relevant.)
As the government’s flagship ‘Digital India’ programme completed ten years on July 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that it has not remained a mere governance scheme, but has become a “people’s movement”.
“In 2014, internet penetration was limited, digital literacy was low, and online access to government services was scarce. Many doubted whether a country as vast and diverse as India could truly go digital. Today, that question has been answered not just in data and dashboards, but in the lives of 140 crore Indians. From how we govern, to how we learn, transact, and build, Digital India is everywhere,” the Prime Minister wrote in a blog post on LinkedIn Tuesday.
In this context, let’s know about the Digital India initiative and understand various Digital India initiatives taken under it.
1. Launched on July 1, 2015, by the Union Government with the vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, Digital India is a flagship programme of the Government of India.
2. Digital India comprises various initiatives under a single programme, each targeted to prepare India for becoming a knowledge economy and for bringing good governance to citizens through synchronised and coordinated engagement of the entire government.
3. The Digital India Initiative is built upon 9 key pillars, each focusing on a specific aspect of transforming India into a digitally empowered nation. These pillars are:
(i) Broadband Highways
(ii) Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity
(iii) Public Internet Access Programme
(iv) e-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology
(v) e-Kranti – Electronic Delivery of Services
(vi) Information for All
(vii) Electronics Manufacturing
(viii) IT for Jobs
(ix) Early Harvest Programmes
4. The Digital India Mission has played a key role in enhancing digital infrastructure for governance and empowerment. Several flagship initiatives under this mission have shaped the e-governance scenario in India.
Various Initiatives under Digital India
According to the State of India’s Digital Economy Report, 2024, unveiled by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), India comes in third place in terms of the digitalisation of the economy. India’s digital infrastructure has been a key driver of its third-place ranking.
📍Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) App: Launched on 30 December 2016, BHIM is an Indian mobile payment app developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
📍Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN): The GST portal was launched on 1 July 2017. According to Digital India’s official site, “Significant achievement has been made by doubling the number of registered taxpayers to 1.23 crores, more than 44 crore returns filed on this portal in first 34 months with more than 23.84 lakh crores tax having been paid on this portal during this period.”
📍Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA): Launched in 2018, it seeks to usher digital literacy in rural India for covering six crore rural households (one person per household).
📍Aarogya Setu app: In 2020, the Government of India launched ArogyaSetu mobile app developed in a public-private partnership to bring the people of India together in a resolute fight against COVID-19. The App joins Digital India for the health and well-being of every Indian.
📍Digital India BHASHINI: Launched in 2022, it seeks to enable easy access to the internet and digital services in Indian languages, including voice-based access, and help the creation of content in Indian languages.
📍Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC): It is a government-backed initiative to create a national e-commerce network.
After knowing about the Digital India Mission and its milestones, let’s know about the newly proposed India Energy Stack (IES), which hopes to replicate UPI’s success in India’s power sector through digital integration.
1. The Ministry of Power on June 27 constituted 17-member task force led by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani for designing and charting a roadmap for the nationwide rollout of the India Energy Stack (IES)— a process expected to take several years.
2. The proposed IES aims to do for the power sector what Aadhaar did for identity, and UPI for finance. By digitally integrating India’s fragmented power ecosystem — from producers and grid operators to consumers, exchanges, and regulators — the IES will enable peer-to-peer energy trading, support aggregated demand-response programmes amid rising renewable integration, and facilitate smoother compliance with carbon offsetting.
3. Notably, In India, electricity is a concurrent subject, meaning both the Union and state governments share responsibility for its governance, which has contributed to a highly fragmented sector, leading to “isolated digital islands rather than an integrated national platform”.
4. The four key challenges facing the power sector are:
📌First, there is no unique identifier for consumers, assets, or stakeholders.
📌Second, decision-making is hampered by the lack of access to harmonised, real-time data.
📌Third, those seeking to offer solutions in this space struggle to scale, as they depend on various proprietary digital platforms.
📌Fourth, there is no interoperability between these digital systems, which prevents cross-regional data sharing and cross-discom transactions.
5. The government is positioning the IES as a natural extension of its successful DPI projects like Aadhaar and UPI.
1. The Centre in September 2024 approved the Rs 2,817-crore Digital Agriculture Mission for the creation of digital public infrastructure in the farm sector.
2. The Digital Agriculture Mission envisions three primary DPI components: AgriStack, the Krishi Decision Support System (DSS), and soil profile maps. Each of these DPI components will give solutions to help farmers access and use a variety of services.
3. The program also seeks to establish a technology-based ecosystem, the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), to give accurate agricultural production estimates.
4. AgriStack: The farmer-centric DPI AgriStack is made up of three core agri-sector registries or databases: Farmers’ Registry, Geo-referenced Village Maps, and Crop Sown Registry, all of which will be developed and managed by state/UT governments.
— Farmers will be assigned a digital identification (‘Farmer ID’), similar to Aadhaar, that will be dynamically connected to records of land, animal ownership, crops sown, demographic details, family details, schemes and benefits received, and so on.
— The Crop Sown Registry will offer information about crops grown by farmers. In each crop season, the data will be collected via Digital Crop Surveys, which are mobile-based ground surveys.
— The maps will connect geographic information from land records to their actual locations.
5. Krishi DSS: The Krishi Decision Support System will develop a complete geospatial system that will integrate remote sensing-based information on crops, soil, weather, and water resources, among other things.
— This data will be used to generate crop maps for identifying crop planted patterns, monitor droughts and floods, and analyse yields using technology or models to settle crop insurance claims for farmers.
6. Soil Profile Maps: Under the Mission, comprehensive Soil Profile Maps (on a 1:10,000 scale) of about 142 million hectares of agricultural land are expected to be generated. According to reports, a full soil profile inventory covering around 29 million acres has already been completed.
(1) Consider the following: (UPSC CSE 2022)
1. Aarogya Setu
2. CoWIN
3. DigiLocker
4. DIKSHA
Which of the above are built on top of open-source digital platforms?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1, 3 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
(2) Which of the following is/are major components of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) that are envisaged under the Digital Agriculture Mission?
1. AgriStack
2. Krishi Decision Support System (DSS)
3. Kisan Credit Cards
4. Soil Profile Maps
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2, and 4 only
| Answer key |
| 1. (d) 2. (d) |
(Sources: PM Modi on 10 years of Digital India: ‘It has become a people’s movement’, Union Cabinet has approved the Rs 2,817-crore Digital Agriculture Mission, digitalindia.gov.in, India Energy Stack)
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