In the run up to the 74th Independence Day celebrations, we bring you today a special story about the initiatives for Digital India. The NDA government has laid a lot of emphasis on transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The Digital India programme was launched on the 1st of July, 2015 to achieve this objective.

 
The Digital India journey in the past 5 years has centred around empowerment, inclusion, and digital transformation. It has positively impacted all aspects of the lives of Indian citizens identity management through Aadhaar, Direct Benefit Transfer, Common Services Centres, DigiLocker, mobile based UMANG services, participatory governance through MyGov, Ayushman Bharat, and PM-Kisan. Digital India’s initiatives have played a pivotal role during the CoVID-19 situation, such as Aarogya Setu, E-Sanjeevani, sensitisation through MyGov and Social media platforms.  The number of e-Services has increased from 2,463 in 2014 to 3,858 till May this year.

 
Daily average electronic transactions have increased from 66 lakh in 2014 to 16.3 crore in 2020. Aadhaar has been issued to 125.7 crore residents and 4,216 crore authentications have been facilitated. Direct Benefit Transfer to the tune of 11.1 lakh crore rupees has been disbursed for 426 schemes from 56 Ministries. Mobile connections are being used by 117 crore and internet connections are being used by 68.8 crore users.