Digital India – Making villages ‘Smart’

The Government’s ambitious “Digital India” plan aims to digitally connect all of India’s villages and gram panchayats by broadband internet, promote e-governance and transform India into a connected knowledge economy. By the year 2019, the ‘Digital India’ program of the Government of India (GOI), envisages that 250,000 Indian villages will enjoy broadband connectivity, and universal phone connectivity. This is a truly visionary and commendable initiative. However, to implement this vision in a country where most of the population resides in rural areas is very challenging. It can best be done by creating Digital “Town Squares” – which will be tower-based sites that enable the Smart Village and would become the focal point for the providing information, social, e-learning and e-governance services to villages. This can become the spring board for rapid economic growth in the rural areas.