Digital India is about empowering citizens, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

Union Communication and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday Digital India is all about empowering the citizens of the country.

"India is a unique place where rocket science and 'jugaad' technology can co-exist. Indians are adept at using technology; the need of the hour is to create an enabling environment for them," said Prasad while addressing industry members at the India Economic Summit organised by the World Economic Forum and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

The session was titled 'Delivering Digital India: How can local innovations be scaled up to achieve inclusive growth?'

Prasad further emphasised that the Mission of Digital India is not only for the central government to implement, but all state governments and private players are important stakeholders in this.

He appealed to the industry members to make this programme outcome oriented, which is the major focus of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and added that private players can play an important role in creating a decentralised distribution network.

He encouraged industry members to make innovative suggestions so that the Digital India programme can become a great success.

The session in particular focused upon the need for providing strategic incubators to rural entrepreneurs, leveraging mobile technology and e-governance and crowd sourcing solutions for reverse innovation.

The discussions also highlighted how to ensure the last mile connectivity, which is extremely important.

The panelists also underlined the importance of the public sector in India but raised concerns about many practices in public enterprises which are more than a century old.