Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the government has employed technology to empower citizens under several national schemes and it was time to simplify and expand it to enhance ease of living for people, and to achieve the national goal of “developed India”.

Modi was addressing a post-Budget webinar on “East of Living using Technology”, the fifth in a series of 12 webinars to seek ideas and suggestions for effective implementation of initiatives announced in the Union Budget, 2023-24.

The prime minister said this is a technology-driven century. The country has talented youth and the required manpower. Rural India’s capability in technology adoption has been established. The Budget has proposed technology expansion, but with a human touch.

Stakeholders should study and make use of the Budget provisions to empower the common man with simplified technology, he said. The Government could bring models, but did not believe that it was the repository of all wisdom. Private parties should come forward to join national efforts in a “jan bhagidari” spirit, he said.

Modi said the government’s intervention in people’s lives had declined in the past some years. The citizens now saw the government as a catalyst for new opportunities, and neither waited for Government largesse nor felt stressed due to government pressures or conditionalities. Living was easier for the deprived and the poor now, he said.

Technology made one nation one ration card possible and crores of people got rations in a transparent manner, he said. The facility proved a boon for the migrant labour. Jan Dhan bank accounts, Aadhaar and mobiles made possible direct transfer of money to the poor. Aarogya Setu and Cowin App particularly helped during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Railway reservations were no longer a headache for the common man and common service centres (CSEs) were linking poorest of the poor with welfare schemes, the Prime Minister said. It was now easier for citizens to communicate with the Government and the facility was best utilised for faceless interaction with the income-tax department.

The income tax department example could be followed in other departments and to make their services of global standards, he said. Endeavour should be made to identify more areas where communication with the Government could be made more comfortable, the Prime Minister said.

The prime minister said Mission Karmyogi was launched to make government employees more citizen-centric. Training programmes for the employees should be constantly updated with modifications based on feedback from the citizens. He suggested creating a system where feedback can be regularly submitted to improve the training.

The government is investing heavily to ensure the benefit of technology reaches everyone, he said. Digital infrastructure was being raised so that everyone benefited from the digital revolution. The GeM portal was giving opportunities to street vendors and small shopkeepers to participate in Government procurement. Similarly, e-NAM is allowing farmers to get linked with buyers at different places and get better returns.

Referring to 5G and Artificial Intelligence and their impact on industry, medicine, education and agriculture, the prime minister said it was time to earmark some goals. It should be decided where and in which sectors technology can be deployed for the welfare of the common citizens.“Can we identify 10 such problems of the society which can be solved by AI,” he said.

Giving examples of the use of technology in the government, the prime minister touched upon Digilocker services for entities where companies and organisations can store their documents and share them with government agencies. He suggested exploring ways to expand these services so that more people can benefit from them.

In the last few years, the prime minister said that several significant steps were taken to support MSMEs and stressed the need to brainstorm and identify obstacles faced by MSMEs. Highlighting that time is money in business terms, the prime minister said there was a need to identify unnecessary complaints which can be ended. Already, 40,000 compliances have been dispensed with, he said. The Government has offered to become loan guarantors for MSMEs and won people’s faith.

The prime minister said the success of government policies depended not only on the care with which they are drafted, but also on the way they are implemented. If India is to become a manufacturing hub, priority should be on zero defect. There should be no compromise with quality. Technology can help in making products with finesse and help capture global markets, he said. Upgradation of technology can help domestic industry end defence and health sector imports too, the Prime Minister said.