The government has approved the extension of the Digital India scheme for a period of five years till 2025-26 with an outlay of Rs 14,903 crore.
“This is a five-year outlay starting from 2021-22 to 2025-26. A lot of work has already happened on this. We were working on moulding and modifying the existing schemes to make them better, bigger and more relevant to today’s requirements. That is why this programme has been extended,” Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
In the extended Digital India scheme, 6.25 lakh IT professionals will be re-skilled and up-skilled under the FutureSkills Prime Programme.
Around 2.65 lakh persons will be trained in information security under the Information Security & Education Awareness Phase (ISEA) Programme.
Under the Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) app/platform, 540 additional services will be available. At present over 1,700 services are already available on UMANG.
On the technology front, nine more supercomputers will be added under the National SuperComputer Mission in addition to 18 supercomputers already deployed.
Bhashini, the AI-enabled multi-language translation tool will be rolled out in all 22 schedule eight languages.
The government also envisions 1,200 startups supported in Tier 2/3 cities. Also, three centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence on health, agriculture and sustainable cities will be set up.
New initiatives in the area of cyber security including the development of tools and integration of more than 200 sites with the National Cyber Coordination Centre will also be launched.
On the educational and excellence front, 3 Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence on health, agriculture and sustainable cities will be set up with Cyber-awareness courses for 12 crore college students.