Drastic budget cuts in schemes under Digital India: Par Panel

A Parliamentary panel has raised "concern" over "drastic cut" in budgetary allocation for several schemes including cyber security and R&D in medical electronics under Digital India programme.
Digital India, umbrella for various schemes, is one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship programmes that aims to make India a knowledge economy. Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) is the coordinating agency.
The Standing Committee on Information Technology, chaired by BJP MP Anurag Singh Thakur, has also raised concerns over "severe constraints" faced by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) on manpower and infrastructure.
The committee in its 6th report said that "Under Digital India -- an umbrella programme of the Department for the year 2015-16 -- there have been reduced allocations under some of the major schemes."

The schemes include Micro-Electronics and Nano-Tech programmes, R&D in medical electronics & health informatics, cyber security (including Cert-In, IT Act), promotion of IT & ITeS industries/ electronics & IT hardware manufacturing, technology development for Indian languages and National Knowledge Network, it said.
The panel said: "It is a matter of concern that drastic cut in the budgetary allocations are going to adversely impact on the R&D activities supported under these programmes of DeitY."

The committee said that major initiatives in the areas of medical electronics and health informatics would not be taken up due to the "drastic cut" in allocation.

"The reduction will also have an impact on the implementation of the key initiatives under the Cyber Security programme, which may hamper the pace of building a safe cyber eco-system in the country," it added.
Also the growth of electronic manufacturing will be affected and there will be delays in implementation of projects under Technology Development Council projects and Technology Development for Indian languages, it said.
"The committee foresees that these hindrances will have a a cumulative adverse effect on the pace of the overall technology development in the country," the committee said.
On NIC, the panel said against the proposed allocation of Rs 1,300 crore, the Budget Estimate (BE) provided for the year 2015-16 for NIC is Rs 700 crore.

"However, the committee are given to understand that NIC is witnessing severe constraints relating to manpower, so much so that it has become extremely difficult for it to sustain the number of projects, as per the IT requirements of the states/UTs," it added.
The other major constraint faced by NIC is related to the expansion of basic infrastructure across the country, it said.
"On both the issues, the committee have been repeatedly expressing their concern," the panel pointed out.