April 30, 2015: MAIT, an apex body representing IT Industry in India, launched the Digital India Action Group (DIAG) to provide ideas for enriching and accelerating the roll-out of Digital India Programme across the Country.
Drawing its members from major ICT companies as well as from the Government, DIAG will strive to ensure the success of the Digital India Programme by providing strategic inputs to various Committees and Teams that would be constituted under the aegis of the PMO, DeitY and other Government Departments and Ministries.
Commenting on the vision of DIAG, Debjani Ghosh, Vice President, MAIT, said: “Technology has the potential to connect the whole of India and benefit each & every citizen. Digital India should enable the percolation of technology to the people and each citizen should be able to access government services with ease.”
She further said that MAIT is best-suited to support & compliment the efforts of the Government in implementing Digital India as it has a vast knowledge base from across the IT ecosystem, which can prove to be a game changer for this ambitious program.
Participating in the opening discussions, Ajai Chowdhry, Founder, HCL, said that Digital India is a very ambitious program as for the first time we are trying to look at a bigger picture or beyond the traditional scope of a typical e-Governance program. He said that now the focus should be to deeply analyze each & every piece of this paradigm and make it work in perfect harmony.
Gaurav Dwivedi, CEO, MyGov spoke on the relevance of e-Governance in the Digital India Programme and stated that: “As far as Digital India is concerned there are so many different elements like the way e-Governance has progressed over the past few years. I see a complete paradigm shift as e- Services now have become the center of every Government Organisation”.
Sanjeev Gupta, Managing Director, Health & Public Service and Corporate Affairs, Accenture stated that: “The steps have been taken in the right direction and the initial ideation has done its job by exciting almost all the stakeholders. But now we need to get down to the brass-tacks and plan for early implementation of each of the 9 pillars”.
DIAG would be led by an Envisioning Team (having representation from Political Leadership, senior levels of the Government, eminent personalities from Media, Academia, Science and Technology) and there would be three dedicated Work groups which would work on the agendas related to Digital Infrastructure, Digital Governance and Digital Empowerment.
As an operating protocol, DIAG will have 2-month agendas and after every two months, it would submit its recommendations & ideas to the Government for its consideration (and appropriate inclusion in the Digital India Programme. To start with, DIAG shall focus on e-Governance, e-Kranti, Broadband Highways and Electronics Manufacturing.
About MAIT
Set up in 1982 for purposes of scientific, educational and IT industry promotion, MAIT has emerged as an effective, influential and dynamic organisation. Representing IT hardware, training, R&D, and associated services in India, MAIT’s charter is to develop a globally competitive Indian IT Industry, promote the usage of IT in India, strengthen the role of IT in national economic development and promote business through international alliances.
