Govt has provided digital identity to 122.9 cr residents of country through Aadhaar

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : The Digital India Programme of the Government aims to transform India into a knowledge-based economy and digitally empowered society by ensuring digital access, digital inclusion, digital empowerment, and bridging the digital divide. Under Digital India Programme, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) has effectively utilised digital technologies to transform the lives of people while ensuring digital inclusion of all the segments. The Government is committed to provide governance and services to the citizens in an affordable and efficient manner within the shortest span of time.

Through Aadhaar, the Government has provided digital identity to 122.9 crore residents of the country with 99% coverage of adult population as on November 30, 2018. Earlier, a substantial percentage of population, especially the economically poor and the rural segment, women and children, did not have an identity card by which they could access a service. Aadhaar has given individuals a Government issued ID card which can be authenticated any time anywhere.

Aadhaar combined with Digital Locker, eSign, and various forms of digital payments have paved the way for common man getting services on his mobile instead of having to run to multiple Government offices.

The growth of digital payments ecosystem is set to transform the economy. India’s unique payment systems such as BHIM-UPI and BHIM-Aadhaar are getting recognized globally. Over the past four years digital payment transactions have grown multifold from 316 crore transactions in 2014-15 to 2,071 crore transactions in 2017-18. BHIM app has become one of the main digital payment instrument for sending, collecting the money and to pay for various utility bills. In November, 2018, more than 173 lakh transactions of value Rs 7,981 crore were made using BHIM app.

The growth of mobile and smartphones have transformed the ecosystem of Digital Delivery of Services. The combination of Jandhan bank Accounts, mobile phones and digital identity through Aadhaar is helping the poor receive the benefits directly into their bank account.

A total of Rs 5.49 lakh crore have been disbursed through Aadhaar based DBT to beneficiaries of 433 government schemes which have led to saving of over Rs 90,000 crore in the last 4 years by removing fictitious claimants. Mobile phones have also provided a major boost to the growth of Digital Payments. Over the past four years digital payment transactions have grown multifold. DigiLocker serves as a platform to enable free of cost unlimited digital space offered to citizens to securely store and share their documents with service providers electronically after giving due permission.

Jeevan Pramaan has improved the ease of verification of pensioners using Aadhaar digital identity. Since its launch on  November 10, 2014, over 239.24 lakh pensioners have submitted life certificates. So far 1.73 crore DLC have been processed. In current year from November 1, 2018, 62.58 lakh pensioners submitted life certificates.

To make governance easily accessible to people and to provide high quality digital delivery of services, UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New Age Governance) is the platform created by the Government that enables access to various government services to the citizens through their mobile phones and  325 services, 72 application of 17 States are available on UMANG as on December 19, 2018, according to a PIB release.

Common Service Centres (CSCs) are bringing eServices to the doorsteps of people in the rural areas in an affordable manner. These are positioned as change agents, promoting rural entrepreneurship and building rural capacities and livelihoods. At present, around 3.05 lakh CSCs are functional including 2.11 lakh CSCs functional at Gram Panchayat leveloffering more than 350 digital services.

There has been almost 29% rise on the production of mobile phones to reach 22.5 crore units vis-s-vis 17.5 crore units last year. It is estimated that about 6.7 lakh persons are employed (directly and indirectly) by the units manufacturing mobile phones and parts/ components thereof.