Year end review 2022: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology

India’s digital story is one of an ICT – led development by use of technology that is affordable, inclusive and transformative. ‘Digital India’ programme aims at transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge-based economy by ensuring ease of access, digital inclusion and participation. The strength of digital infrastructure and digital services has already proved its resilience during the pandemic times. India is among the top countries that have experienced the fast digital adoption. This has been achieved due to a focused approach of the Government and the implementation of innovative initiatives. These initiatives have not only eased the life of citizens but have also created a favorable ecosystem for startups, industries and electronics manufacturing with an aim to make India an “AtmaNirbhar” nation. Following are the major initiatives and the achievements during this year:

Digital Infrastructure

Digital Identity: Aadhaar

• Aadhaar is world’s largest digital identity programme that provides biometric and demographic based unique digital identity that can be authenticated anytime, anywhere and also eliminates duplicate & fake identities. It provides an identity infrastructure for delivery of various social welfare programmes. As on 31st November, 2022, 129.41 crore [Live] Aadhaar has been issued.
• For providing convenient Aadhaar enrolment and update services to the people, UIDAI has started 88 Aadhaar SevaKendras (ASKs) in 72 cities across the country.
• UIDAI has launched Face Authentication modality by which an Aadhaar number holder’s identity can be verified with Aadhaar authentication. Presently, 21 Entities have been permitted to use Face authentication in production environment. The total number of
• Face Authentication transaction since 15th October 2021 to 30th November 2022 is 1.15 crore.

Digital Delivery of Services

• Common Services Centres (CSCs): CSCs are the world’s largest digital service delivery network, with wide reach in rural areas up to Gram Panchayat & Block level. These information and communication technology enabled kiosks with broadband connectivity has been providing various governments, private and social services to the citizens. As on date, 5.49 lakh CSCs are functional (including urban & rural) out of which, 4.37 lakh CSCs are functional at Gram Panchayat level.
• Meri Pehchaan, a National Single Sign-On (NSSO)was launched on July 4, 2022 by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, is a user authentication service wherein single set of credentials can provide access to multiple online applications or services. Currently, 5057 services of various Ministries/States integrated with NSSO.
• MyScheme was launched on July 4, 2022 by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, is a schemes eMarketplace, where citizens can discover eligible schemes based on his/her demography. More than 180 schemes of the 27 Central and State/UT Governments across 13 diverse categories have been hosted.
• DigiLocker has provided a dedicated cloud-based platform as a personal space to residents for storage, sharing, verification of documents & certificates, thus it is helping in eliminating use of physical documents. Over 13.5 crore users are registered with DigiLocker and over 562 crore documents are accessible via DigiLocker.
• UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) has been developed as a unified platform to deliver major Government services through Mobile. So far, 1,658 services from Central/State Govt. along with 20,197 Bharat Bill Payment Services (BBPS) have been on-boarded on UMANG
• India Stack Global has been initiated to showcase the India Stack and its building blocks globally. At present, 12 key projects/platforms namely Aadhaar, UPI, Co-Win, API Setu, DigiLocker, AarogyaSetu, GeM, UMANG, Diksha, E-Sanjeevani, E-Hospital, and E-Office are made available at the portal of India Stack Global available in all UN languages.
• API Setu: MeitY had notified the ‘Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)’ in 2015. The policy intended to promote efficient sharing of data among data owners and inter-and-intra Governmental agencies to achieve the objective of interoperable systems in order to deliver services in an integrated manner. Hence, API Setuproject intends to facilitate implementation of this policy. The portal has published around 2,118 APIs provided by many Central and State Government departments on NDH gateway. Currently, there are 1047 Publishers and 330 Consumers.
• eSign provides easy, efficient, and secure signing of electronic documents by an Aadhaar holder. so far, 34.41 crore eSigns have been issued. Out of these, e-Sign issued by CDAC (i.e. under e-Hastakshar project) is 8.22 crore.
• National AI Portal has been developed to provide all information related to Artificial Intelligence to all stakeholders at a single place and promote awareness and communication on AI in the country. As on 31 October 2022, it has published 1520 articles, 799 news, 262 videos, 114 research reports and 120 government initiatives, all related to AI.
• AarogyaSetu: It is a mobile application launched by the Government of India on 2ndApril, 2020, to aid the COVID-19 efforts of the Government. The App works based on contact tracing method and helps the Government in identifying, monitoring and mitigating the spread of COVID-19 across the country. The App is now transformed into National Health App, brining a whole plethora of digital health services powered by Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). Using Aarogyasetu, citizens can now register for Ayushman Bharat Health Account (i.e., Digital Health ID) and leverage it for interaction with participating healthcare providers
• GST Prime: GST-Prime is a product to help the tax administrators to analyze and monitor the tax collection and compliance within their jurisdiction. GST-Prime improves the GST compliance, increase the tax collection, increase the tax base, detect the tax evasion and fraud and predict the effect of policy change.
• e-Taal 3.0 (Electronic Transaction Aggregation & Analysis Layer): eTaalprovides a real-time aggregated view of volume of eServices being delivered across different agencies of the Central, State and local Governments in India. eTaal dashboard displays the number of ‘end-to-end electronic transactions’ as the indicator for measuring the performance of G2C, G2B and B2C e-Services. Since, Jan, 2022 to 7th Dec, 2022, around13,897 crore e-transactions has been recorded and 20 additional e-Services have been integrated with platform. Making the total of 4033 eServices integrated.
• Vehicle Location Tracking System (VLTS)is designed to track and monitor public vehicles with the help of GPS-based tracking devices which gets fitted in Vehicles. The System also has a provision to send panic alert which triggers emergency response procedure to support passenger in distress with the help of effective monitoring using Command Control Centre.
• eChallan: A comprehensive traffic management solution using a mobile-based app and complimentary web application which is Integrated with CCTV/ ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Reading) Cameras, RLVD/OSVD (Red Light/ Over Speed Violation) Devices, Later Guns etc for issuance of challan/ notices.
• Electronic Human Resource Management System (eHRMS): eHRMS application is responsible for the maintenance of employee record in electronic form, from hiring to retiring. The project includes scanning/digitization of service book to capture the legacy data and provision of numerous online services through various modules; namely Service Book, Leave, LTC, Personal Information, Reimbursements, Advances, Tour, Helpdesk, etc
• ServicePlus: It is a Meta Data Based e-Service Delivery Framework which helps in making all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality through common service delivery outlets. Presently, the framework is successfully running in 33 States/UTs facilitating more than2,791Services of Central, State and Local Government.
• Open Government Data (OGD 2.0): The OGD Platform (https://data.gov.in) has been set-up to provide proactive access to Government owned shareable data, along with its usage information in open/machine readable format, periodically, within the framework of various related policies, rules and acts of the Government. From 1st January 2022 to 7th December 2022, OGD platform have 66,000 dataset resources, 876 catalogs contributed by 571 Ministry/Departments, over, 210 Visualizations created, 44,704 Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) created. Till date, datasets have 32.22 lakh times viewed and 94.7 lakh times downloaded on OGD Platform.
• Global Indices (E-Government Development Index): MeitY is the nodal ministry for E-Government Development Index (EGDI) along with two-line Ministries/ Departmentsviz. Department of Higher Education and Department of School Education and Literacy (DHE and DoSEL). The EGDI is a composite measure of three important dimensions of e-government, namely: Online Service Index, Telecommunication Infrastructure Index and the Human Capital Index.

The latest E-Government Development Index (EGDI) 2022 edition indicates the e-government development status of all 193 United Nations Member States. India has ranked 105th in EGDI 2022.

CT Bureau