News Highlights:
Recently, The Minister for Electronics & Information Technology launched the ‘Digital Payments Utsav’, a comprehensive campaign to promote digital payments across India.
Digital Payments Utsav:
- About:
- The “Digital Payments Utsav” is an extraordinary campaign that will showcase India’s digital transformation journey, with a series of events and initiatives to be held from 9th February to 9th October 2023.
- Focus area:
- The campaign will focus on promoting digital payments in the country, especially in the cities of Lucknow, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, as part of the G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) event.
- Initiatives launched:
- During the Utsav, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will launch a QR code and a Coffee Table Book.
- The ministry will launch the “Digital Payments Sandesh Yatra” during the Utsav. The main objective of the yatra is to create awareness of digital payments in the country
- The ministry will present the “Digi Dhan Awards” for the top-performing banks in the country.
- Need of Campaign:
- To advance financial inclusion and accelerate the expansion of the digital economy, the comprehensive campaign is anticipated to bring together a range of stakeholders, including the government, businesses, and the general public.
- These initiatives will expand the reach of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in India and beyond. The focus is on connecting the unconnected areas of India and making UPI a global payment method.
India’s Digital Initiatives:
- DigiLockers:
- This flagship initiative aims at ‘Digital Empowerment’ of the citizen by providing access to authentic digital documents to citizen’s digital document wallet.
- E hospitals:
- It is a Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) which is a one-stop solution for connecting patients, hospitals and doctors through a single digital platform.
- Till February 2021, as many as 420 e-Hospitals had been established under the Digital India campaign.
- E-Pathshala:
- Developed by NCERT, e-Pathshala showcases and disseminates all educational e-resources, including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals and a variety of other print and non-print materials through the website and mobile app.
- BHIM:
- Bharat Interface for Money is an app that makes payment transactions simple, easy and quick using Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
- FutureSkills Prime:
- MeitY, in collaboration with NASSCOM, has initiated a programme titled FutureSkills PRIME.
- The programme is aimed at re-skilling/ up-skilling of IT professionals in 10 new/emerging technologies, which include Augmented/Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, Additive Manufacturing/ 3D Printing, Cloud Computing, Social & Mobile, Cyber Security and Blockchain.
- MeghRaj:
- To utilise and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing, the Government has embarked upon an ambitious initiative − GI Cloud, named MeghRaj.
- The focus of this initiative is to accelerate the delivery of e-services in the country while optimising the Government’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) spending.
- Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG):
- For providing government services to citizens through mobile.
- More than 1668 e-Services and over 20,197 bill payment services are available at UMANG.
- MeriPehchaan:
- National Single Sign-on (NSSO) platform called MeriPehchaan was launched in July 2022 to facilitate/provide citizens ease of access to government portals.
- It is a user authentication service in which a single set of credentials provide access to multiple online applications or services.
- e-Sign:
- e-Sign service facilitates citizens’ instant signing of forms/documents online in a legally acceptable form.
- The services are being leveraged by various applications using OTP-based authentication services of UIDAI.
Pic Courtesy: Freepik
Content Source: PIB