To transform India into digital empowered society and knowledge economy, this is what digital India

stands for.

Digital technologies are being increasingly used by us in everyday lives from retail stores to
government offices. They help us to connect with each other and also to share information on issues
and concerns faced by us. In some cases, they also enable resolution of those issues in near real
time. The Digital India campaign was also launched with the aim of better rural connectivity and
awareness.

Although this campaign is one that is beneficial, allow me to be a critic to the same and present a
few hard facts we cannot ignore. The timing of its launch. At a time where a section of people in the
country didn’t even have food, proper needs, we moved on to digitisation.

Moreover, the demonetization that came right after, wasn’t helpful. It was poorly planned and the
digitization that the government aimed for wasn’t even put into place when the time arrived.

We all have faced issues with online or card transactions due to poor network or issue with card
swiping machine. When these issues can take place frequently in metropolitan cities they would be a
major issue in rural areas where usually people don’t have the expertise and familiarity with the
technology. Everything comes at a cost, even the convenience of a cashless transaction. The
intermediary Paytm usually charges 1% of the amount as service charge.

Along with these drawbacks, the Digital India campaign avoids basic values of consent and right to
privacy. The threat of misuse of data is much bigger than the need of digitization. The campaign was
never an option for the citizens. The emphasis on Aadhar linking process was a clear example of
imposing government policy over people. It has also been speculated that the government data
bases were leaked and peoples’ information misused. The whole campaign also resulted in
devaluation of the currency, lowest being 73 rupees for 1 USD.

Such fundamental issues will keep on happening frequently as the government has ignored a few
basic pointers about India. The Indian economy is predominantly rural with over two-thirds of its
population and workforce residing in rural areas.

Hence, if we are to talk about digitization, the major cities are doing extremely well and are to an
extent, meeting the goals but, I would not so easily say that that’s all that there is to it. If we are to
measure the success of this campaign, and reap the best benefits from it, the first place to look,
measure and develop is the rural areas. After their basic needs comes the duty to bridge the gap
between urban and rural areas and this can happen given that the efforts are concentrated in the
rural areas, with effective planning and efficiently invested budget.

Digitization has become vital to growth and a reformed method of the same campaign can reap
better benefits than before.