Digital North East Vision 2022 : Vision Document Released

Sukalpa Dhar

(The Writer can be reached at sukalpa.dhar@gmail.com)

On 11th August, 2018 Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice released the document ‘Digital North East Vision 2022’ at Radisson Hotel in Guwahati. The Vision Document emphasizes leveraging digital technologies to transform lives of people of the north east and enhance the ease of living. The Document identifies eight digital thrust areas namely, Digital Infrastructure, Digital services, Digital empowerment, Promotion of Electronics Manufacturing, Promotion of IT and ITES including BPOs, Digital Payments, Innovation & Startups and Cyber security. State-wise roadmaps for implementing digital initiatives in the North-eastern States have been developed. Through these, the Vision Document aims to empower the people of the North-eastern region. First electronics manufacturing cluster in north-eastern region was also inaugurated on this occasion. The objectives of Digital North East Vision 2022 are: (a) to provide high speed broadband connectivity and mobile connectivity in all the uncovered villages in the north-eastern region. (b) to create a Cloud-hub at Guwahati with Disaster Recovery Center for the NER. (c) to expand Common Service Centers to all Gram Panchayats in North East States (d) to provide better access to quality health, educational and agricultural services using Digital Technology (e) to promote local tourism, art and culture, handicraft, handloom (f) to establish Start-ups and innovation hub for the North-east (g) to provide safe and secure cyberspace for digital north east by setting up specialized cyber security labs and by providing skill development through special trainings and IEC (h) eight Thrust Areas have been identified by this Vision document for the empowerment of the people of the north-eastern region. These areas include (i) Digital Infrastructure, (ii) Digital Services, (iii) Digital Empowerment, (iv) Promotion of Electronics Manufacturing, (v) Promotion of IT and ITES (IT enabled services) & BPO Industries, (vi) Promotion of Digital Payments, (vii) Digital Innovation and Start-ups, and (viii) Cyber security.

Under ‘Digital North East: Vision 2022’ a cloud hub for the North-east will be created in Guwahati and capacity building for 50,000 government stuff will be taken up in using digital technologies, including goods and service tax and payment platforms. The number of seats planned for business process outsourcing (BOP) in north-eastern states will be doubled from 5,000 to 10,000 while the network of common service centres will be expanded to cover all villages. The document said high speed broadband connectivity in all the uncovered villages in the North-eastern region shall be provided. The Vision Document aims to empower the people of the North-eastern region and state-wise roadmaps have been developed for implementing digital initiatives. It has developed state-wise roadmaps for implementing digital initiatives in North-eastern States. Through these, it aims to empower the people of the north eastern region. Under Digital North East, Union government will invest nearly Rs. 10,000 core in this region over next four years to implement more than 400 projects. Digital North East is seen as an integral part of Digital India Programme. It will help in leveraging power of information technology to leapfrog the overall development of the north-eastern region and realise its potential. ‘Digital North East: Vision 2022’ will take some time to make the North-east a developed one but it is a very effective step on the part of the Government. However, the vision being very ambitious it will require lot of close monitoring for its successful implementation. As we understand several projects or implementation of Guwahati as smart city has been delayed because of absence of sufficient technical expertise in the region. Sufficient incentives are not inbuilt to attract experts from other developed regions to come forward for this. As we know, most of the technically qualified people from this region are engaged with MNCs at Bangaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, etc. It will be necessary to provide enough incentives and appropriate environment to attract these experts to come back to their home region to sub-serve the vision.