The ministries of the Government of India have come up with various government programs called schemes or plans (Yojana) from time to time. These schemes could be formed either by the central government, state government specific or joint collaboration between the centre and the states.
MINISTRIES
- The Ministry of Electronics and Technology promotes e-governance and sustainable growth of the electronics, IT and ITeS industries, enhancing India’s role in internet governance.
- The Ministry of Communications looks after the Department of Posts and Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
POSTS
- The modern postal system, the most preferred facilitator of communication, was established in India by Lord Clive in 1766 and it was further developed by Warren Hastings in1774.
- The statute presently governing postal services in the country is Indian Post Office Act, 1898.
- Organization Overview: The Department of Posts comes under the Ministry of Communications. The Postal Service Board, the apex management body of the department.
- Financial Services: Department of Posts is operating Small Savings Schemes on behalf of Ministry of Finance, which frames and modifies rules relating to these schemes and pays remuneration to the Department of Posts.
- India Post Payments Bank (IPPB): It was set up in 2016 as a Public Limited Company with 100 per cent GOI equity under Department of Posts. It is the biggest bank of the country in terms of physical presence of 1.36 lakhs access points.
- Postal Life Insurance (PLI) was introduced in 1884, as a welfare scheme for the benefit of postal employees.
- Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) was started in 1995 to provide insurance cover to the rural public.
- Speed Post was started in 1986 for providing a time-bound and express delivery of letters and parcels weighing upto 35 kg between specified stations in India.
- Gangajal through Post Offices: India Post has put in place arrangements for supply and distribution of ‘Gangajal’ sourced from Rishikesh and Gangotri, through post offices across the country from 2016.
- Electronic Indian Postal Order (e-IPO): Based on the proposal received from Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), India Post agreed to facilitate acceptance of RTI fees from Indian citizens abroad through e-IPO on e-Post Office web portal.
- e-Post Office is an e-commerce portal of the Department of Posts which provides selected postal facility through the internet.
- Indian Post office Rules 2019 are to be issued which will be in supersession of IPO Rules, 1933. The Indian Post Office Rules, 2019 will be a new set of Rules which will govern the functioning of the post offices in the present environment.
International Relations
- India is a member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) since 1876. This organization of 192 member countries aims to extend, facilitate and improve postal relations among other countries.
- India is also a member of the Asian-Pacific Postal Union (APPU) along with 31 other member countries.
Philately
- Philately is the hobby of collecting stamps as well as the study of postal history and other related items.
- The ‘Post Shoppe’ is a convenient store format, located in the premises of important post offices, which essentially keeps wide range of collectable philatelic items such as stamps, first day covers and also ‘My Stamp’ corner where one can get stamps with own photograph.
- A philately scholarship scheme called Deen Dayal SPARSH (Scholarship for Promotion of Aptitude and Research in Stamps as a Hobby) Yojana was introduced in 2017-18 to promote philately among children at a young age.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
- Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) deals with policy matters relating to information technology, electronics, internet (other than licensing of ISPs) and cybersecurity.
- The Information Technology Act, 2000 was amended through the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 which substituted the word “digital signature” with “electronic signature” with major changes in various sections along with insertion of other sections.
Digital India
- This programme has been envisaged by Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY).
- Digital India aims to provide thrust to the nine pillars of growth areas, namely: (1) broadband highways; (2) universal access to mobile connectivity; (3) public internet access programme; (4) e- governance: reforming government through technology; (5) e-Kranti – electronic delivery of services; (6) information for all; (7) electronics manufacturing; (8) IT for Jobs; and (9) early harvest programmes.
- Digitize India Platform (DIP) is an initiative of the Government of India under the Digital India Programme to provide digitization services for scanned document images or physical documents for any organisation. The aim is to digitize and make usable all the existing content in different formats.
E-Governance initiatives
- In order to transform the quality of services and to provide integrated services the “eKranti” initiative aims to utilize emerging technologies such as cloud and mobile platform and focus on integration of services.
- S-Sampark Database is developed to send messages and emails to public representatives and government employees.
- E-Taal is a web portal for dissemination of e-transaction statistics of national and state level e-Governance projects including mission mode projects.
- E-Districts is one of the Mission Mode Projects(MMPs) under e-Kranti, with the MeitY, as the nodal Ministry, to be implemented by state government or their designated agencies. This MMP aims at electronic delivery of identified high volume citizen centric services, at district and sub-district level, those are not part of any other MMP.
- Common Services Centre: This scheme aims at providing ICT enabled frontend service delivery outlets, across rural India covering six lakh villages.
- GI Cloud: In order to utilize and harness the benefits of Cloud Computing, the government has embarked upon an ambitious and important initiative – “GI Cloud” which has been coined as “MeghRaj”.
- E-Way Bill Application, provides a self-service platform to taxpayers and transporters to generate a single e-Way Bill for movement of goods from one place to another, as per GST Rules.
- Jeevan Pramaan/Digital Life Certificate (DLC) is a biometric enabled digital service for pensioners for submitting their Life Certificates digitally, which was introduced in 2015 as a Digital lndia lnitiative of Government of lndia.
- MeitY has conceptualized and is implementing the e-Pramaan framework for e-Authentication for public services.
- National Knowledge Network (NKN) was established in 2010 to interconnect all institutions of higher learning and research with a high speed data communication network to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative research.
- Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance (UMANG) has been developed and launched in 2017 as a single mobile platform to deliver major government services.
- Digital Locker is a platform for issuance and verification of documents and certificates in a digital way, thus eliminating the use of physical documents.
PRAGATI
- PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation) was launched in 2015.
- This video conferencing facility brings the secretaries of government of India and the chief secretaries of the states on a single platform on every fourth wednesday of the month, through which the Prime Minister is able to discuss the issues in major projects and programmes directly.
Promotion of Digital Transactions
- A new educational channel ‘DigiShala’ for creating awareness regarding various forms of electronic payment to citizens was launched in 2016.
- The BHIM App was launched in 2016 and within a short span BHIM downloads have crossed 20 million with transactions worth around ₹ 3,000 crores.
Organizations
- National Centre for Geo-Informatics (NCoG) provides GIS based services to government ministries/departments.
- National Cyber Co-ordination Centre (NCCC) is being set-up with an aim to generate cybersecurity situational awareness to anticipate and prepare for cyberattacks.
- The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was established in 2009, as an attached office to the Planning Commission now an attached office of Ministry of Electronics and IT with a vision to implement the Aadhaar scheme.
- In accordance with the provision contained under Section 48(1) of the IT Act 2000, the Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal (CRAT) was established in 2006.
- Education and Research Network (ERNET), India is an autonomous scientific society of the Ministry. ERNET has made significant contribution for the emergence of networking in the country.
- National Informatics Centre (NIC) was established in 1976, and has since emerged as a “prime builder” of e-government/e-governance applications.
- National Internet Exchange (NIXI) is a not for profit organization set up under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 (now Section 8 under Companies Act, 2013) for peering of ISPs among themselves and routing the domestic traffic within the country.
- National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) a scientific society of the MeitY, is actively engaged in capacity building and skill development in Information Technology (IT).
- Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) was set up in 1991 as an autonomous society under the MeitY for promotion of software exports from the country.
- Media Lab Asia has been promoted by this Ministry as a not-for-profit company to bring the benefits of ICT to the common man.
- Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is a functional organization of the Ministry, which has been designated under Section 70B of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 to serve as the national agency to perform functions in the area of cybersecurity.
- Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER) was set up in 1984 as an autonomous laboratory in Mumbai to undertake R & D work in the areas of Microwave Engineering and Electromagnetic Engineering Technology.
- National Informatics Centre Services Inc. (NICSI) was set up by National Informatics Centre (NIC) in 1995 as its extended arm for providing total ICT solutions to the central and state government departments and organizations.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
- India is currently the world’s second-largest telecommunications market with a subscriber base of 1.18 billion.
- India’s mobile economy is growing rapidly and currently constitutes more than 98 per cent of all telephone subscriptions.
Tele-density
- Tele-density denotes the number of telephones per 100 populations.
- Overall tele-density in the country was 90.10 per cent at the end of March 2019. The rural tele- density was 57.50 per cent while that in urban areas it was 159.66 per cent.
- Amongst the service areas, Himachal Pradesh (146.37 per cent) had the highest tele-density and Bihar (59.95 per cent) had the lowest.
- Amongst the metros, Delhi tops in tele-density with 238.57 per cent.
Internet and Broadband Penetration
- The number of Internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband put together) has reached to 636.73 million by the end of March 2019.
- The number of subscribers accessing internet via wireless phones, etc., was 615.05 million at the end of March 2019 while the number of wireline internet subscribers was 21.68 million.
- The number of Broadband subscribers was 561.36 million at the end of March 2019.
Organizations
- DoT has the following PSUs under its administrative control: (a) Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limtied (BSNL); (b) Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL); (c) ITI Limited; (d) Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL); (e) Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL); (f) Hemisphere Properties India Limited (HPIL).
- C-DOT, an autonomous body, is DoT’s R&D arm.
- UPSC CSE Prelims: GS Paper-II CSAT RC Questions
- Ancient History And Art & Culture Questions – UPSC Prelims
- Chota Nagpur Plateau (छोटा नागपुर का पठार)
- Ministry of Law and Justice (India)
- Foreign Relations of India
- Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
