Digital India: Myth or Reality

 

The digital age has provided a golden opportunity for India to pitch in its strengths. In fact, the digital age around the world has been driven by Indians. For this great turnaround of Indians and India, the quality of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education of India and the English language must be given credits. But the same STEM education’s quality seems to be fading. In future, India must lose out in the global race due to the compromised quality of STEM education. The governments at the centre and states have taken some corrective measures. It must be strengthened and implemented with full force.

Digital age is the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) driven age where everything is in digital mode. The digital mode helps anyone to access or give information anywhere with a click of mouse or swipe of a finger. What was available in papers, boards or in physical formats are available in digital formats. The speed and time of accessibility has changed dramatically. From minutes to seconds to milli seconds, the availability and provision of information has transformed. 

The myth sounding around the country is everything is perfectly alright with the arrival of digital technologies. You can get your cooking gas connection instantly, education loans immediately, government benefits quickly etc. Although there is a big forward movement in accessing government services, there is no complete solution to the earlier problems. Still teething problems can be seen in the country.

The reality is India is moving fastly on the digital track. The number of mobile phones in India. Today there are 350 mobile phone users and this is expected to cross 450 million in next three years. Internet users are also in the same league of mobile phone users. Its numbers are also stay close proximity to the mobile phone users. The governments at the centre and state have already started converting physical paper records into digital ones.

In the education front, the launch of National Academic Depository will bring in speed, accuracy and closing the leaking holes in the academia. The start of National Testing Agency can save billions of rupees by switching over to online tests. The government conducts more than 1000 examinations including the omnipotent Union Public Service Commission, State Public Service Commissions, National Entrance Cum Eligibility (NEET), Joint Entrance Examinations, Railway Recruitment Services, University Grants Commission NET exams, State Level Eligibility Tests (SLET), entrance exams for schools, colleges, banking exams etc.

Going for online exams can save million reams of paper and thereby contributing for the environmental preservation, quicker announcement of results, avoiding the leakage of questions, tampering of answer sheets etc. 

Government can earn billions of rupees through National Testing Agency and National Academic Depository (NAD). First the huge expenditure incurred on conducting paper based examinations can save a huge sum of money. Second, staff required for supervision, correction of answer sheets, third, setting up of question papers often can junked. 

The National Depository can be one stop solution to all the problems posed by the quack academicians. Very often, even our top political guns, business tycoons, industrialists, academicians are accused of faking their degrees. With the NAD, a quick verification of one’s academic credentials can be done. For the academic credential verification, private and government agencies pay Rs.1000 per candidate. Now this amount may go to NAD which will turn out to be hundreds of crores per year. 

In short, the digital India not only increase the speed of e-governance but also give financial muscle to the government bodies. All these years painstakingly built government agencies are going to deliver revenue dividends too. All depends on how efficiently our government employees are going to work.