Union Cabinet approves Rs 14,903 crore Digital India programme

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet Wednesday approved the expansion of the Digital India programme with a total outlay of Rs 14,903 crore.

An official spokesman in a statement issued to the Press Information Bureau (PIB) said that the expanded programme was approved during the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said that the Digital India programme was launched on July 1, 2015 to enable digital delivery of services to the people and has proved to be a very successful programme.

The spokesman said that this would enable 6.25 lakh IT professionals to be re-skilled and up-skilled under the Future Skills Prime Programme.

He said that 2.65 lakh persons would be trained in information security under the Information Security and Education Awareness Phase (ISEA) Programme.

“A total of 540 additional services will be available under the Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) app or platform. At present over 1700 services are already available on UMANG,” the spokesman said.

He said that nine more supercomputers would be added under the National Super Computer Mission.

“This is in addition to 18 supercomputers already deployed. Bhashini, the AI-enabled multi-language translation tool (currently available in 10 languages) will be rolled out in all 22 schedule 8 languages,” the spokesman said.

He said that programme would also be responsible for the modernisation of the National Knowledge Network (NKN), which connects 1787 educational institutions.

“Digital document verification facility under DigiLocker will now be available to MSMEs and other organisations,” the spokesman said. “A total of 1200 startups will be supported in Tier 2 and 3 cities.”

He said that 3 Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence on health, agriculture, and sustainable cities would be set up while cyber-awareness courses would also be started for 12 crore college students.

“New initiatives in the area of cyber security including development of tools and integration of more than 200 sites with the National Cyber Coordination Centre will also be taken,” the spokesman said.

He said that Wednesday’s announcement would give a boost to the digital economy of India, drive digital access to services and support India’s IT and electronics ecosystem.