Revolutionizing Digital Infrastructure in India: Tomorrow’s India is Digital India

Case study

BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) under the leadership of Narendra Modi came to power India in the year
2014. Modi envisioned India as a digitally empowered economy and on these lines, the Modi government
devised a “Digital India" strategy which envisions to digitally empower the society and knowledge
Economy in India. The digital India vision seeks to bring about digital revolutions in three areas Digital
Infrastructure, on-demand governance and services, and digital empowerment of citizens. To offer digital
infrastructure as a key utility to every Indian citizen, it seeks to unify all ICT (Information and
communication technology) initiatives in India under one head, so that they can be implemented in a
synchronised manner. Through these IT Infrastructural changes, the government’s Digital India strategy
aims to leverage on Indian talent better to transform India into a knowledge economy. The major thrust
areas identified as the nine pillars of Digital India are-Broadband Highways, universal access to mobile
connectivity, public internet Access programme, e-governance, e-Kranti, early harvest programs,
information for all, IT for jobs and electronics manufacturing. In addition to this, the government through
this strategy seeks to bring about IT infrastructure changes so as to seamlessly integrate all departments,

enabling digital transactions, cloud services for entitlements and government certificates or documents,
real-time service availability, digitalisation of literacy enabling digital resources in Indian languages,
universal access to these resources, and collaborative digital platforms. In this direction, the government
has already implemented a number of projects which have remarkably successful \in their area of
operation.

The first step in this context is the National Optic Fibre Cable (NOFN) project approved by the Indian
Cabinet in the year 2011. Optical fibre cable (OFC) currently connects all states, districts and up to the
block level. The NOFN project attempts to stretch this connectivity further by digitally connecting
2,50,000 grama panchayats in a network so as to ensure broadband connectivity to the remotest areas of
India. Three government bodies-BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited), Power Grid Corporation of India
and Railtel were chosen for implementation which worked under the head Bharat Broadband Network
Limited (BBNL), and the total project was distributed among the three entities in a ratio of 70:15:15, that
is BSNL was responsible for 70 percent of the GPs, Power Grid for 15 percent and Railtel for the remaining
15 percent . The existing fibres of each of these three PSUs will be utilised and incremental fibre will be
laid wherever necessary. The project was to be implemented at a cost of 20, 000 crore INR provided by
Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The project is highly ambitious since such vast connectivity
would facilitate the implementation of ICT initiatives as well such as e-commerce, e-banking to name a
few. In addition, a World Bank study estimated that a 10 percent increase in broadband connectivity
leads to a 1.38 percent increase in GDP of the country. Therefore, this infrastructural change would not
only lead to better connectivity but also move India closer to complete digitalisation and development in
leaps and miles. Initially, a survey was carried out to determine the existing resources (already laid down
fibre) available on the ground to leverage on the same and determine incremental fibre optic length
required per gram panchayat. Next step was to procure optic cables, where 100 percent preference was
given to indigenous producers of the same; procurement of electronic equipment, out of which 75
percent would be made in India and rest would be imported and procurement of ducts (cases in which
pipes are enclosed before laying down on the ground), trenching and laying . GPON or Gigabit Passive
Optical Network Technology would be utilised to enable single fibre optic cable to serve multiple
premises through passive optical splitters, using point to multipoint architecture. As in September 2018,
the project has been able to connect 1,14,155 gram panchayats through fibre optic cables.BBNL has
launched a service called BharatNet which is a network between block and GP, which offers bandwidth
services and dark fibre or incremental fibre utilisation . The service providers at GP level, connect to
BharatNet at Block level, carry the traffic till GP and then use their own measures to deliver it to end
customer. This bandwidth utilisation is delivered at competitive and affordable price. The service
providers may also leverage on the laid down incremental or dark fibre cable at a bare cost of 2, 250 INR
per km of FOC per annum, which is much below the market price. The project is in its second phase of
implementation and targets to complete connectivity of all 2,50,000 GPs by 2019. This phase also involves
laying down of aerial OFCs over the electricity poles to lower the cost, and speed up implementation.The
project also envisions the third phase to be completed till 2023, to provide state of the art, future proof
network.

Broadband services can be delivered through a variety of wired or wireless technologies. While
prominently used wired technologies are optical fibre cables, Ethernets, Digital subscriber lines, wireless
service is often accessed through radio frequency signals or wi-fi (wireless fidelity). India has very low wi-
fi penetration with one hotspot for every 1000 Indian people. To encourage growth in this area, GOI has
provided free wi-fi services at railways stations in India. At present, it is available across 707 stations.
Users can access the same through Railwire network and log in using their mobile numbers and OTPs
received via SMS through the mobile number. Free wifi hotspots have also been launched in many
cities such as Ahmedabad, Bengaluru , where for the first 30 minutes, usage is free while the user
can recharge for continued use. This is part of a larger mission of GOI called WANI (WiFi acces Network
Interface) which aims to smoothen the process of setting up open architecture based paid public Wi-Fi.
Currently, the government has partnered with a number of public and private players for providing
application service and required hardware and software services.

Digi locker is another major infrastructural revolution brought about by the GOI which provides
personalised storage space to each Indian citizen on the cloud. The cloud services are provided by
ownCloud which is a free open source software and enables sharing of documents on the cloud via the
web interface. This platform enables one to store e-documents at one platform, link them with Aadhaar
number and also store URI (uniform resource identifier), the unique link for each e-document issued by
different departments. The user can create an account on this platform using a mobile number and
option all with an Aadhaar number and the dashboard OJ the account summary shows all the document
uploaded by the individual , issued by various departments or agencies, documents shared and a log of
all activities performed by the individual on the platform. This initiative will not only reduce paperwork
and hence eliminate red-tapism in the government sector which is a major cause of lack of transparency
in government dealings, but also secure e-documents and authenticate them . As such administrative
overheads in the government departments will also reduce. Linked to this Digi Locker service, GOI had
also launched eSign service, where the user places a request for issuance of digital signature to the eSign
service provider, who verifies user information through adhaar eKYC (Digi Locker) and after successful
verification forwards the request electronically to certifying authority which then issues and uploads the
digital certificate Locker portal of the applicant. In Digi Locker has also partnered with Ministry of Road
Transport and Highways, under which it has integrated the National Register (national database of driving
license and vehicle registration data across the country) with Digi Locker. As a result, digital registration
certificate and driving license would be available in electronic form in Digi Locker portal of the individual,
accessible through mobile devices and therefore aiding in authentication, and on-spot verification.
To curb security issues, DigiLocker uses 256- bit secure socket layer (SSL) Encryption for information
transmitted during any activity. Access to the system is through OTP generated on the mobile number of
an individual. Even access to issued documents such as digital signature certificate is only valid through
Aadhaar based biometric or OTP authentication service. The data of all users is securely placed in a
National Data Center, which is ISO 27001 security certified. ISO 27001 is an internationally recognised
standard aimed at information risk reduction through compliance with a framework of policies and
procedures, which describe the requirements to set up an Information Security Management System

Figure 5.14 GI CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

GI CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

While presently, cloud services for Digi Locker are being leveraged through ownCloud, the government
has launched its own cloud initiative termed as "Meghraj". Owing to a number of digital initiatives taken
by GOI recently, the need for digital infrastructure, growing demand indigenously, speeding up the
process of developing and rolling out e-initiatives, GI cloud has been planned for launch. The GI Cloud will
enable service delivery to government departments, citizens and businesses through the internet as well
as mobile platforms. Besides this, Meghraj service delivery platform will also support a number of other
objectives including increased standardisation, interoperability and integration, a move towards an open
model, the pooling of scarce, under-utilised resources and the spread of best practices.

The architecture of GI Cloud would be based on discrete cloud computing environments spread across
multiple locations, built on existing or new (augmented) infrastructure, following a set of common
protocols, guidelines and standards issued by the Government of India. The GI Cloud services will be
published through a single GI Cloud Services Directory. The GI Cloud is envisaged to consist of multiple
National and State Clouds. The agencies responsible for operating and managing the National and State
Clouds may engage private service providers or Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for managing the
respective cloud computing environments. These cloud computing environments will utilise the existing
network infrastructure such as the SWANs, NKN, NOFN integration hubs as well as the internet.

Another homegrown IT infrastructure initiative is e-hospital, which is basically an online registration

system, which facilitates online appointments, procuring lab reports and checking for blood availability in
government hospitals. As on September 2018, 179 government hospitals now offer an online
appointment and patient registration facility through the initiative. An ambitious project Digitize India
platform provides an innovative solution by combining machine intelligence and a cost-effective
crowdsourcing m project aims at extracting all existing co with any organization in any media or format
and language, digitizing them and securely placing them for further analysis and use. It features a secure
and automated platform for processing and extracting relevant data from document images in a format
that is usable for meta-data tagging, IT application processing and analysis. The target is to reduce paper-
based documentation, enable speed of access a: eliminating the need for document scan. which renders
the document useless. This solution is implemented on a cloud-base platform as a service model and
incorporates document preparation, processing and release features.

Aadhaar which is a digital biometric identification system is also a major infrastructural backbone of
Digital India. This project contains three infrastructure components-enrolment and update ecosystem,
authentication ecosystem and registered biometric devices. While Enrolment ecosystem is responsible for
the collection of demographic and biometric information of individuals through enrolment agencies

authentication ecosystem has authentication service agencies and authentication user agencies to
authenticate user data in real time online. The latter is a scalable system and handles tens of millions of
such transactions per day. For robust biometric devices, STQC Standardisation Testing and Quality
Certification (STQC), Directorate of MIETY of GOI lays down technical standards for the registration of
biometric devices and also certifies them. This biometric system and Aadhaar has truly facilitated a
number of e-services delivery in India. A large number of APIs (application program interface)
workaround Aadhaar enabled the verification and identification process. India Stack is a move towards
integrating APIs to ensure uniformity. IndiaStack is a set of APIs that allows governments, businesses,
startups and developers to utilise a unique digital Infrastructure to solve India's hard problems towards
presence-less, paperless, and cashless service delivery. It offers four technology layers-presence less
layer, working on biometric identification system allowing individual participation irrespective of their
location; paperless layer, working on linking digital documents or records of an individual with his digital
identity eliminating the need for massive paper collection; cashless layer, enabling countrywide payments
using unified interface; and finally, consent layer which allows for free movement of data with user
consent . APIs which are part of this project are Aadhaar authentication system, Aadhaar e-KYC, eSign,
Digital Locker, Unified payment interface (UPI) and digital user consent which is progress. Other APIs in
development, similar to India Stack, but working on integrating IT platforms in areas other than India
Stack, are GSTN (Goods and Services Tux Network), BBPS (Bharat Bill Pay System), ETC (Electronic Toll
collection).
Although most of the initiatives are in their nascent stages, they have achieved remarkable success. The
infrastructure is still growing and so are the projects based on the same. However, the government is
remarkably promoting the usage of Digital India services through its own awareness campaigns and also
by leveraging the presence of social networking giants such as Google and Facebook. Various state
governments have collaborated with Facebook to increase individual participation and engagement in
elections. Facebook and Airtel have launched additional 20,000 wi-fi hotspots across four Indian states.
Indian Railways have partnered with Google for providing high-speed wi-fi at more than 400 railways
stations. Google is also working on building products which work even in areas of low connectivity, and in
multiple Indian languages. The campaign would be a true success when digitalisation penetrates the
remotest and most granular portion of India.

The government further envisions to shift governance from e-governance to m-governance, where "m"
stands for mobile and not Modi, as Narendra Modi aptly equips. This too would require major
investments in the tune of 1.13 lakh crores INR in the technology sector in India.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

5-10 What is the Digital India initiative? List the nine pillars of the same.

5-11 What is the purpose of NOFN project? How was it carried out?

5-12 Suggest infrastructural changes by government to promote delivery of broadband services across
India?

5-13 How government is providing personalised storage space to each citizen? What are the benefits?

5-14 What is Meghraj? Discuss its architecture and purpose in detail.

5-15 Discuss e-hospital and Aadhaar as biometric identification system.