Why in news?
Affordable smartphones and 750 million Internet connections access have made India a digital nation.
How has Fintech revolutionized India?
- Citizens who are accustomed to pay their routine bills by standing in queues at utility offices started adopting fintech.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, various Digital platforms started providing goods and services, including online education and telemedicine.
- Many professionals have maintained productivity by working from home.
Is it premature to call India a Digital Nation?
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bengaluru Tech Summit said that the true measure of digital nations is the readiness of governments to use technology & it must be open .
- The public systems must be participatory that citizens should consider it trustworthy.
- Governance must achieve a reliable system of digital welfare.
- There must be seamless delivery of all citizen services.
- All the above are not true to an extent.
- However, a beginning has been made to provide government-to-citizen services by establishing Common Service Centres .
- Legal advice are been provided to four lakh people under the
Tele-Law scheme.
- Welfare benefits are provided through bank accounts digitally.
- If digital methods are applied to other sectors, such as road safety,it has the potential to reduce the accident mortality rate of about 1,50,000 deaths a year.
How can technology transform the health sector ?
- The core plan in Ayushman Bharat is digital health identity for all.
- It would help to access ,prescribe and dispense essential medicines free.
- The public procurement cost reduces to 0.1% to 0.5% of GDP.
- It can help in achieving universal health coverage (UHC).
- However efficient digital government depends on transforming internal processes government departments, redefining and fixing deadlines for citizen-centric service delivery.
Source: The Hindu
