Digital India Aims to Change Our Lives, Governance: Arun Jaitley

Reeling off impressive figures to substantiate how digital technology facilitated the government's efforts on financial inclusion, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said Digital India was aimed to "change our lives" and the way India governs itself.

"Our financial inclusion programme is the largest in the world. In less than five months, we have opened 160 million 'Jan Dhan' accounts. The direct benefit transfer scheme has been extended to 130 million people in a few months," Jaitley said in New Delhi at the launch of Digital India programme by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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"As many as 110 million new insurance policies were issued in less than five weeks...that's how technology has been used. Through Digital India, we want to change our lives and way of governance," the finance minister said.

"In the next few years, we'll see more of banking, payment banking and the like being done through the Internet," he added.

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Pointing out that the initiative launched on Wednesday was part of a series of programmes intended to give a "new direction to the country", Jaitley said while last week saw launch of 'Smart Cities Mission', 'Skill India' educational initiative would be unveiled next week.

The Prime Minister on Wenesday also unveiled a logo for Digital India. For this scheme, the Prime Minister has already been named chairman of a high-powered monitoring committee and all existing and ongoing e-governance initiatives will be revamped to align them with the larger principles of Digital India, according to an official statement.

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The larger goal of Digital India includes broadband connectivity in all panchayats, Wi-Fi in all the schools and universities and public Wi-Fi hotspots in all important cities by 2019. It will be deployed in delivering services in areas like health, education, agriculture and banking.

Written with inputs from IANS