Digital India and E-Governance: Pillars, Schemes and Models

The correct answer is B, the Information Technology Act, 2000. It is India’s first cyberlaw, and it is the statute that gave legal recognition to electronic records and to digital and electronic signatures, so that a contract concluded online is as enforceable as one written on paper and a department may accept a filing or issue a licence electronically. That recognition is exactly what electronic commerce needs, which is why the Act is described as providing its legal infrastructure; it also created the Controller of Certifying Authorities and was amended in 2008 to cover data protection, cyber terrorism and interception. Options A, C and D are wrong because no Information Technology Act was passed in 1996, 1998 or 1990; they are near years offered to test whether the candidate remembers the exact one. Note that 2000 is also the year in which the United Nations model law on electronic commerce was being adopted widely.

The correct answer is B, 1 July 2015. Digital India was launched on that day with the tagline Power to Empower, and it is implemented by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology; the launch week was observed as Digital India Week. Option A is wrong because 15 August 2014 is when several announcements were made from the Red Fort, including the Jan Dhan Yojana, but not the launch of Digital India. Option C is wrong because 26 January 2016 is simply a Republic Day and carries no connection with the programme. Option D is wrong because 2 October 2014 is the date on which the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched, which is the commonest distractor in this question because the two programmes are often listed together as flagship missions. Fix the pairing as Digital India on 1 July 2015 and Swachh Bharat on 2 October 2014.

The correct answer is B, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, shortened to MeitY, which is the nodal ministry for the programme and also for the National e-Governance Division, DigiLocker, UMANG and CERT-In. Option A is wrong because the Ministry of Home Affairs handles internal security, the police and the census, and it is a user of digital systems rather than their owner. Option C is wrong because the Ministry of Communications looks after telecommunications and the Department of Posts, and although BharatNet touches it, the programme itself does not sit there. Option D is wrong because the Ministry of Science and Technology funds research through its departments and has no role in delivering government services online. Remember that electronics and information technology were separated into their own ministry precisely to own such programmes.

The correct answer is C, nine. The nine pillars are Broadband Highways, Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity, the Public Internet Access Programme, e-Governance or reforming government through technology, e-Kranti for the electronic delivery of services, Information for All, Electronics Manufacturing, IT for Jobs, and Early Harvest Programmes. Option A is wrong because five is the number of vision areas in some summaries and of pillars in none; the programme states three vision areas. Option B is wrong because seven is simply a near number offered to catch a candidate who half remembers the list. Option D is wrong because eleven has no place in the design of the programme. The safest way to hold this is to remember three vision areas and nine pillars, because papers ask for both numbers and swap them between options.

The correct answer is C, the Unique Identification Authority of India, usually called UIDAI. It was set up in 2009 and was given statutory standing by the Aadhaar Act of 2016, and the first Aadhaar number was issued in 2010 at Tembhli village in the Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. Option A is wrong because the Reserve Bank of India is the central bank and regulates banks and payment systems; it does not issue identity numbers. Option B is wrong because the National Informatics Centre, set up in 1976, provides the technical backbone of government computing, such as networks, data centres and websites, but it is not the issuing authority. Option D is wrong because the Election Commission issues the elector photo identity card, which is a different document with a different purpose, and mixing the two is the standard trap here.

The correct answer is C, the National Payments Corporation of India, the umbrella organisation for retail payments in the country, which built the Unified Payments Interface and launched it in 2016. The same corporation runs the RuPay card network, the BHIM application and the immediate payment service, so a question about any of these has the same answer. Option A is wrong because the Reserve Bank of India is the regulator that permitted and oversees the interface, and the distinction between regulating a system and operating it is exactly what the question tests. Option B is wrong because the State Bank of India is only one of the many banks whose customers use the interface. Option D is wrong because the Securities and Exchange Board of India regulates the securities market and has nothing to do with retail payments.

The correct answer is B, Government to Citizen. This is the model in which a service is delivered directly to an individual, such as an online caste or income certificate, a driving licence application or a pension payment, and it is the model most visible to the public. The other three models are G2B, government to business, which covers procurement through the Government e-Marketplace and the filing of returns; G2G, government to government, where departments exchange data with one another; and G2E, government to employee, which covers pay, leave and pension systems for staff. Options A, C and D are wrong because company, commerce and corporation are all covered by the single category G2B, and none of them is a separate recognised model. Learn the four abbreviations together, since papers ask for any one of them.

The correct answer is A, Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance. The application was built by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology with the National e-Governance Division so that a citizen can reach hundreds of central and state services, from provident fund enquiries to gas bookings, from a single app in several languages. Options B, C and D are wrong because each changes one or more words of the expansion, and this is precisely how full-form questions are set: the examiner keeps the first letters and alters the words behind them. The words to fix in memory are unified, mobile, application, new-age and governance. Keep it apart from DigiLocker, which stores documents in the cloud, and from MyGov, which is the citizen engagement platform for consultations.

The correct answer is B, all gram panchayats. BharatNet lays optical fibre to the panchayat level so that village institutions, Common Services Centres, schools and health centres can get broadband, and it is the main project under the Broadband Highways pillar of Digital India. Option A is wrong because district headquarters were already connected long before this project; the whole difficulty of BharatNet lies in the last stretch from the block to the village. Option C is wrong because State capitals have been on the national network since the earliest days of government computing. Option D is wrong because railway station connectivity was a separate effort, carried out with a telecom operator and the railways, and is not what this project set out to do. Remember BharatNet with the gram panchayat.

The correct answer is B, transparent. SMART governance is the standard shorthand for the aim of administrative reform in India, and it expands to simple, moral, accountable, responsive and transparent government; e-governance is treated as the means by which each of these five qualities becomes possible, since an online process is simpler, leaves a record, can be tracked and can be published. Option A is wrong because technical describes a means rather than a quality of governance and has never been part of the acronym. Option C is wrong because targeted belongs to the language of subsidy delivery, as in targeted public distribution, not to this acronym. Option D is wrong because timely, though desirable, is not the word used; the trap works because both timely and transparent begin with a plausible sound for the letter T.