Prof. (Dr.) Neelam Ruhil and Ms. Parul Bansal (Assistant Professor) from Electronics and Computer Engineering Department of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attended the iBharat 2016 organized at FICCI, New Delhi in partnership with the Department of Electronics & IT, Government of India on 11th January 2016. “i-Bharat” is an ICT initiative undertaken by FICCI and the conference aims at engaging various stakeholders of ICT to deliberate upon transformation of key sectors in India through effectual implementation of ICT.

The objective of the conference was to bring together resource persons and provide a platform to speed ahead on Digital Highway, delve deep into practical means/measures that can transform key sectors in the country through effective technology implementation, and explore action plans to drive deployment and strengthen the public-private partnership. It provided industry personalities and academicians with a platform for sharing the views and discussing the role ICT can play in making India reach for sustainable development including education and healthcare. The conference included several sessions with the motive of creating awareness about the policies of government to make India build excess capacity and ways through which these steps can be taken at the grassroot level.

Dr. A. Didar Singh (Secretary General, FICCI) discussed regarding the theme of the event and mentioned that ICT education is basically our society’s efforts to teach its current and emerging citizens valuable knowledge and skills around computing and communications devices.

The Chief Guest of the conference Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad (Hon’ble Minister for Communications & IT, Government of India), talked about mobile telephony and smartphones, internet penetration and their impact on our lives and mentioned that we have surpassed US in mobile phone usage. He further said that transformation needs to go deep and mentioned that he follows Facebook regularly and gave the example of a boy in a small town of Madhya Pradesh who uses Google translate to learn Spanish to aid his father’s business. He said that Digital India is evolving very fast and the technology is now able to reach to the masses and is helping them in their day-to-day lives and businesses. He stated another example of a mathematics teacher in a school who makes educational apps for students and competitions even though he did not have formal education in IT. He mentioned that this is due to the fact that Indians are very innovative and are always involved in jugaad systems. He said that through e-taal portal all the government transactions are available at the click of a button and gave the statistics for the phenomenal increase in the number of people using this portal over the past 3 years and digital momentum of India has started and his role as a policy maker is to facilitate this momentum to greater height. Establishing BPO call centres in small towns of India is a big step towards this. He then said that postal offices in India can be converted into digital centres with the use of hand-held devices. Common Service Centres (CSC) are used for making passports, Aadhaar cards, electricity bill collections, banking correspondence, insurance delivery. So the role of the BPO call centres, Common Service centres and digital postal offices is to provide a cutting edge platform for Digital India. He also talked about Digital Infrastructure where Gram Panchayats are being connected by Optical Fibre Network with already 2,50,000 gram panchayats are already connected. He concluded by saying the next step is to facilitate a platform for electronic manufacturing, e-learning (digital classes and virtual classrooms) and e-health. Digital India is politics neutral, centre state neutral and is only India positive where all of us have to work together for Digital India, Skill India, Make in India and Innovative India.

Ms. Debjani Ghosh (Chairperson, FICCI IT Committee) stated that Digital India is a vision which can be accomplished by the active and thoughtful participation of each and every citizen of the country. She discussed about the current status, goals and aim set for Digital India at the beginning. She asserted the fact that Digital India is happening and to look for the change, we need to look at the bottom and gave the example of e-taal portal which stands for Electronic Transaction Aggregation and Analysis Layer and is a web portal for dissemination of e-Transactions statistics of National and State level e-Governance Projects including Mission Mode Projects. She concluded by saying that the execution of Digital India is incomplete without the collaboration of Government and Industry and both need to move together to make it work faster.

Mr. Harshavardhan Neotia (President, FICCI) talked about the iBharat initiative and stated that it was encouraging that the Indian government is prioritizing technology as an enabler for the transformation and development of the country and that Digital India acts as a vehicle for social inclusion with healthcare and education. He added that FICCI has initiated the Digital Bharat series as a platform for having transformative exchanges and deliberations to understand the nature of the opportunities being offered by the government programs like Digital India and Make in India which would help in unifying the country and bringing development to the masses.

Three panel discussions on “Leveraging ICT as operation paradigms for building smart cities”, “Erudition Encounters and Experience in Implementing eGovernance/ICT Projects” and “What role can ICT play in making India ready to address the challenges of Sustainable Development goals (SDG’s)” were conducted where resource persons shared and discussed the examples on the current scenario of Digital India and SDG and the role of ICT and government initiatives in these.

During the Keynote Address on Transformative Ideas, Disruptive Technologies, Mr. Leighton Phillips (Director, Intel Solutions Group, Asia-Pacific – Japan) mentioned that digital technologies are presenting new opportunities and are transforming the environment around us. Socio-economic development requires transformative ideas and innovative approach for self-sustainable growth. Disruptive technologies can be the key components in improving social cohesion by providing various bridges for communication. He continued by saying that there are 6 cornerstones of smart cities and several challenges for smart cities as cities don’t scale. There are urbanization hot beds with insights of leading interventions, mobile transport, smart cities- building facilities, public infrastructure & services and smart analytics.

Mr. Joe Phelan (Director, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)), talking about the Role of the Private Sector in SDGs and how to embed and measure these goals in their operations said that putting the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) at the heart of the company allows capitalization on a number of benefits. Businesses are aware of SDGs but they don’t have the tools required for them. The SDGs compass is built around defining priorities (in action: mapping the SDGs against the value chain), setting goals (in action- adopting a goal setting approach), integrating (define the scope of goals and integrate with current system) and reporting and communicating. The penetration of ICT use in the business.

Environment boosts the local economy of any city in terms of its productivity, activities, employment opportunities and overall living standard. Smart cities have been just an alternative approach towards the inclusive development in terms of infrastructure, governance, growth friendly and a better place to live in. Digital inclusion has become a necessity rather a requirement.

Mr. Kishore Balaji giving the concluding remarks pointed out that the success of both “Digital India” and “Make in India”, will ride on the back of strong telecom ecosystem, digital infrastructure and industry’s link in the value chain. Some important issues on policy and regulatory front will need continued attention and the policy should be data-driven, decision-maker and should lead to scaling up of the measures.

Each session was followed by a questionnaire and the discussion was thrown open to the attendees as well where everyone participated actively and several suggestions were made which can be included in the government policies. The sessions were very informative and highlighted the initiatives of government in regards to Digital India. It was a good experience to be a part of panel discussions and the talks by all the speakers were ineffably engaging.

The following are the key takeaways of the conference:

1. e-taal (Electronic Transaction Aggregation and Analysis Layer : it is a web portal for dissemination of e-Transactions statistics of National and State level e-Governance Projects including Mission Mode Projects).

2. e-Mitra (e-Mitra is an ambitious E-governance initiative of Government of Rajasthan (GoR) which is being implemented in all 33 Districts of the state using Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for convenience and transparency to citizens in availing various services of the Government and Private Sectors under a single roof at their door steps using an e- platform).

3. Bhamashah yojana (Bhamashah scheme cash and non-cash benefits to the state plans perpendicular to each beneficiary is to deliver transparent featured. The ration card scheme, pension, scholarships for higher and technical education, will also include as beneficiaries. The family as the base plan meets their goal of financial inclusion, where every family 'Bhamashah card will be linked to their bank accounts).

4. AMRUT project (urban renewal projects – Smart City and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).

5. e-hospitals & e-healthcare (e-Hospital@NIC is a Hospital Management System is a workflow based ICT solution for Hospitals specifically meant for the hospitals in Government Sector. Online Registration System (ORS) is a framework to link various hospitals across the country for Aadhaar based online registration and appointment system, where counter based OPD registration and appointment system through Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) has been digitalized).

6. CSC (Common Services Centers are a strategic cornerstone of the Digital India programme. They are the access points for delivery of various electronic services to villages in India, thereby contributing to a digitally and financially inclusive society. CSCs enable the three vision areas of the Digital India programme).

Some glimpses from the event: