Several thousand crores were committed by industry giants to the project
July 01, 2015
PM Narendra Modi launched Digital India week on July 1, with many stalwarts from the industry like Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Cyrus Mistry and Azim Premji among others joined him in the movement. The project has been envisioned as an ambitious umbrella programme to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.
It comprises of various initiatives under the single programme each targeted to prepare India for becoming a knowledge economy and for bringing good governance to citizens through synchronized and co-ordinated engagement of the entire Government.
The vision of Digital India programme also aims at inclusive growth in areas of electronic services, products, manufacturing and job opportunities etc. The vision of Digital India is centred on three key areas –
(i) Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen
(ii) Governance & Services on Demand and
(iii) Digital Empowerment of Citizens
Hailing the initiative, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani said, “I believe Digital India will be a huge success because of the adoption of technology by the youth of India. Reliance will invest 250,000 crore across digital India pillars.”
Mukesh Ambani made announcements related to Reliance JIO on internet service rollout, making affordable smartphones and devices in India.
PM Modi kickstarted the event, as IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad delivered the keynote address saying, “We are promoting electronic manufacturing in a very big way. Invite all entrepreneurs to come and make in India”
State run telecom major BSNL announced major initiatives for connecting India through internet. Aadhar integration with mobile number for authentication was also introduced at the event.
While speaking about the Tata Group’s digital initiatives, Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry said, “I would like to congratulate the government and commit Tata Group’s whole hearted participation.” TCS has partnered the government for projects like Passport Seva and others in remote locations.
Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla announced that his company plans to invest USD 7 billion in the next 5 years to consolidate connectivity infrastructure. The company is also launching a mobile wallet.”
Similarly on those lines, Anil Agarwal, Chairman, Vedanta announced that his company is committed to spend in excess of Rs 100,000 crore in the next 5 years. “We will take 4G to the masses”, he added.
Reliance Group, headed by Anil Ambani, committed to invest Rs. 10,000 crore to fund transformational initiatives across the Digital, Cloud and Telecom space. RCOM’s 11 data centers, connected by India’s largest terrestrial fiber network and the world’s largest submarine sub-sea cable infrastructure, already constitute a vital core of India’s digital backbone.
