PM Narendra Modi's ‘Digital India’ mission ready

New Delhi: Soon a few of the key ministries will have “nodal officers”, who will be made responsible for ensuring smooth implementation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s  over Rs1 lakh-crore “Digital India” programme.

New posts of “Chief Information Officers” would be created in at least 10 key ministries to supervise its implementation, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) secretary R.S. Sharma said, adding that in addition there would be a “Digital India Advisory Group” (DIAG), which will be headed by minister of communications and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“DeitY would also be creating four senior positions within the department for managing Digital India,” he said.

DIAG would supervise the implementation of the programme, advise the government on policy issues and strategic interventions necessary for accelerating the implementation of Digital India Programme across Central and state government ministries and departments, the secretary said.

On the role of DeitY in the initiative, Mr Sharma said all initiatives under the Digital India programme would be coordinated by the department.

“DeitY would provide its advice during the appraisal of the projects under the Digital India programme. This appraisal would cover issues relating to adoption of standards, utilisation of cloud and mobile platform, consideration of security aspects, etc,” he added.

DeitY will assist other departments in conceptualising, developing, appraising, implementing and monitoring respective mission mode projects, e-Governance initiatives, Mr Sharma said.