[Indian Year Book 2022-23]* Indian Year Book Notes | Chapter 25. Communications & Information Technology

 

Indian Year Book

(2022-23)

Chapter – 25. Communications &

Information Technology

 

Ø  Communications and Information Technology in the country are handled by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Ministry of Communications.

Ø   The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology promotes e-governance and sustainable growth of the electronics, IT and ITeS industries, enhancing India’s role in internet governance while the Ministry of Communications looks after the Department of Posts and Department of Telecommunications.

Ø   Main activities and initiatives of these departments are given here:

 

Posts

Ø  The modern postal system, the most preferred facilitator of communication, was established in India by Lord Clive in 1766 and it was further developed by Warren Hastings in1774.

Ø  The expansion of its network was made during 1786 to 1793.

Ø  For the fi rst time, the post offices were regulated through an Act of 1837 on a uniform basis to unite all the post office establishments throughout the then existing three Presidencies into one all-India service.

Ø  The statute presently governing the postal services in the country is the Indian Post Office Act, 1898. With the introduction of the Post Office Savings Bank in 1882 banking facilities were accessible to all.

 

Initiatives under post

§  National Pension Scheme

·         National Pension Scheme (NPS), earlier known as New Pension System, for common citizens was introduced by government in 2009.

·         India Post is a point of presence for the national pension system.

·         Subscribers (any Indian citizen) in the age group of 18 to 55 can join NPS and contribute till the age of 60.

·         These pension contributions are invested in various schemes of different pension fund managers appointed by Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).

 

§  Mutual Funds

·         Provide reach to the capital Markets and ease of access to common man to market based investment options.

·         Presently, mutual fund products of UTI only are being retailed through over 2000 post offices

 

§  International Money Transfer Services

·         In collaboration with Western Union Financial Services, India post proves the service to 195 countries.

 

§  Core Banking Solution & installation of ATMs

·         The Core Banking Solution (CBS) is a part of the India Post IT modernization project that aims to bring in various IT solutions with the required infrastructure to the post offices.

·         The project aims to implement Core Banking Solution in all the post offi ces for small savings schemes during current plan period.

·         There is a network of 1000 ATMs at all district headquarters and prominent locations.

 

§  Social Security scheme

·         Jan Suraksha Schemes like Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBM) and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) were launched in 2015 in all CBS post offi ces for all post offi ce savings account holders.

·         Atal Pension Yojana(APY) was launched in all head post offi ces in 2015.

·         MoU with National Insurance Company and LIC for PMSBY and PMJJBY respectively.

 

§  Sukanya Samriddhi Account

·         Sukanya Samriddhi Account, a new Small Savings Scheme for the welfare of girl child, was launched in 2015.

·         Under the scheme, a legal/natural guardian can open only one account in the name of one girl child and maximum two accounts in the name of two different girl children up to 10 years from the date of birth of the child.

 

§  India Post Payments Bank

·         India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) was set up in 2016 with a mandate to build a most accessible, affordable and trusted bank for the common man by removing the barriers for the unbanked and promote the adoption of cashless transactions in a predominantly cash based economy.

·          IPPB got incorporated as a Public Limited Company with 100 per cent GOI equity under Department of Posts.

·         IPPB recently launched the following services: 

·         Life and General Insurance. 

·         Domestic money transfer. 

·         Digital Life Certifi cate (Jeevan Pramaan). 

·         PMJJBY. 

·         Virtual Debit Card. 

·         DakPay UPI. 

·         Child Enrollment Lite Client and Adhaar mobile updation. 

·         Cash management services.

§  IPPB is offering a bouquet of payments and their salient features are: 

·         deposits—savings accounts, currents accounts; 

·         money transfer—simple and secure, instant, 24x7; 

·         direct benefi t transfers—MGNREGA, scholarships, social welfare benefi ts and other government subsidies; 

·         third party products—loans, insurance, investments, post offi ce savings scheme; 

·         bill and utility payments—mobile and DTH recharge, electricity/water/gas bills, donations and insurance premium; 

·         enterprises and merchant payments—postal products, digital payment of e-commerce delivery (CoD), small merchants/kirana stores/ unorganised retail, offl ine payments, cash management services.

 

§  Post Office Common Service Centre

·         A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between India Post with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited to set up “Common Service Centres” (PO-CSCs) in Post Offi ces across the country for providing various G2C (Government to Citizen) and B2C (Business to Citizens) services to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country thus enabling the government’s mandate Of the of a socially, fi nancially and digitally inclusive society. Post offi ces have been onboarded as PO-CSC’s for delivering more than 100 Citizen Centric services which include both G2C (Government to Citizen) Services as well as B2C (Business to Citizens) Services.

·         G2C (Government to Citizen) include Pradhan Mantri Fasal BimaYojana,Pradhan Mantri Street Vendors’ Atmanirbhar Nidhi Yojana; Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (Ayushman Bharat); Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan Yojana; Pradhan Mantri Laghu Vyapari Maan-dhan Yojana; National Pension Scheme; and PAN card eKYC. Election Card Printing and e-Stamp Service would be provided in states where CSC e-Governance Services India Limited have a tie-up with state governments. Various e-District services of some of the states would also be available to the members of public.

·         The B2C (Business to Citizens) services offered include Bharat Bill payment system bills (electric, gas, water bills, etc.), renewal premium collection for Life Insurance policies and General Insurance such as motor vehicle, health and fi re insurance, etc.

 

New and Value Added Services

§  Mail Network Optimisation Project

              Mail Network Optimisation Project (MNOP) was undertaken by the Department with the     objective of consolidation and optimisation of its mail network and with a view to improve quality of mail operations by streamlining core mail operations. The project covers Speed Post, International Mail, Registered and Unregistered Mail. MNOP project has been implemented in the entire country comprising 23 postal circles. It has resulted in benefi ts to the customers in terms of improved delivery effi ciency of Speed Post and increased number of Speed Post and registered articles having end to end tracking (from booking to delivery).

 

§  Postman Mobile Application

              Postman Mobile Application (PMA) is an android-based mobile application which has been designed and developed in-house by the Center for Excellence in Postal Technology (CEPT), Mysuru. Department of Posts has provided around 50,000 smart phones in urban areas and more than 1 lakh smart phones to the delivery staff in the rural areas for the deployment of PMA. It is being used by the delivery staff both in urban and rural areas for delivering Speed Post/parcels, business parcels, registered post and money orders and for capturing real-time delivery information. Wide spread usage of PMA has enhanced the overall customer experience and the delivery performance.

 

Electronic Clearance of Letter Boxes

 Department has introduced electronic monitoring of the clearance of letter boxes through the Nanyatha software, which provides a mechanism for checking the clearance of letter boxes.The number of letters posted in a particular letter box is made available in the system. The members of public can also track the status of letter box clearance in any particular locality by logging on to the web tool, http://appost. in/nanyatha. This step has resulted in ensuring regular clearance of letter boxes thereby improving timely delivery of unregistered mail posted in letter boxes. The e-clearance of letter boxes has been implemented in 3,969 cities/towns across the country covering 43,241 letter boxes.

 

 Parcel Network Optimisation Project

Ø  The global decline in letter mail, and India being no exception to this trend has been offset by an increase in packets and parcels. India Post being traditionally letter-oriented operations, has undertaken Parcel Network Optimization Project (PNOP) during 2016 to revamp the parcel operations and had taken certain steps to address the needs of the parcel specifi c requirements ranging from network, strengthening processing hubs, delivery centres, ensuring security etc. India Post provides various types of parcel services like ordinary parcel, registered parcel, insured parcel, value payable parcel, business parcel and speed post parcel to cater to the needs of different customers.

Ø  To address the needs specifi c to India Post’s parcel operations, important steps were taken which include: dedicated network created for handling parcels consisting of 190 Parcel Hubs, 57 L-1 and 133 L-2 hubs; Department has increased the parcel handling capacity from 6 crore parcels per annum to 9.84 crores parcels per annum by June 2021; to create reliability and greater control over movement of parcels, a new and dedicated All India Mail & Parcel Road Transport Network comprising of 68 national and 348 regional routes is being created and operationalised to ensure dedicated internal supply chain connectivity up to tier-III cities. This is in line with the best practices of the competitor private players where majority of shipment is done through dedicated fl eet of vehicles, etc.

 

Electronic Indian Postal Order (e-IPO)

Ø  Based on the proposal received from Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), India Post agreed to facilitate acceptance of RTI fees from Indian citizens abroad through e-IPO on ePost Offi ce web portal.

Ø  The user may purchase an Indian Postal Order electronically by paying a fee online through ePost Offi ce Portal. Payment of fee can be made using debit and credit cards powered by VISA and Master.

Ø  Initially this facility was launched in 2013 only for Indian citizens abroad across the globe to seek information from the Central Public Information Offi cers (CPIOs) under the RTI Act, 2005. Later on, the facility was extended to 176 Indian Missions abroad. e-IPO facility was further extended to Indian citizens living in India in 2014 to facilitate them to pay RTI fee online.

 

e-Post Office

e-Post Office is an e-commerce portal of the Department of Posts which provides selected postal facility through the internet. This portal aims at providing a convenience to the public for availing select postal services from their home/ offi ce using their own computer and internet. Customers can buy philatelic stamps and pay PLI/RPLI premium online using credit/debit card through this portal. The customer would need to register on the website for the first time.

 

e-Post

e-Post is an unregistered hybrid mail provided for both retail as well as corporate customers providing electronic transmission of messages which may include text messages, scanned images, pictures and their delivery in hard copies at the destination through postman/delivery staff. Presently, e-Post booking facility is available in more than 13,000 post offi ces and are physically delivered through a network of more than 1.54 lakh post offi ces, etc., to draft, design and send messages as per their business requirements from their offi ce premises by using the internet. Online recharge facility for pre-paid customers is available using credit/debit card.

 

e-Payment

It is an option for businesses and organisations to collect their bills or other payments through post offi ces. e-Payment is a many-to-one-solution which allows collection of money (telephone bills, electricity bills, examination fee, taxes university fee, school fee, etc.) on behalf of any organisation electronically.

 

Release of Stamps

In all, 14 issues consisting of 41 stamps were released during the period April 2020 to March 2021 commemorating various personalities, events/ occasions. Some of the signifi cant commemorations were — 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, 75 years of the United Nations, 125th Birth Anniversary Year of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, 50 Years of full Statehood of Himachal Pradesh, 60 years of the High Court of Gujarat and 100 years of First Visit of Mahatma Gandhi to Odisha. Some of the thematic stamps were Musical Instruments of Wandering Minstrels, Terracotta Temples of India, UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India-Ill Cultural Sites, Salute to Covid-19 Warriors. Joint issue stamps on ‘Golden Jubilee Year of India Bangladesh Friendship’ were also issued.

 

My Stamps

My Stamps are personalised sheets of postage stamps of India Post. Personalisation is achieved by printing a thumb nail photograph image of the customer and logos of institutions, or images of artwork, heritage buildings, famous tourist places, historical cities, wildlife, other animals and birds, etc., alongside the selected commemorative postage stamp.

 

Personalised ‘My Stamp’

Personalised ‘My Stamp’ is a personalised sheet of postage stamps. Alongside these personalised theme stamps, customers may opt for printing of their own, parents, family, etc., pictures to be printed. Some of the themes of Personalised My Stamps are Taj Mahal, Hawa Mahal, Mysore Palace, Indian Army, rose, happy anniversary, Vaishno Devi, etc.

 

Customised ‘My Stamps’

Customised ‘My Stamps’ is a customised sheet of postage stamps wherein corporates organisations and institutions can get customised sheets printed from India Post. Alongside these customised themed stamps, organisations may opt for printing of their logo and images of their organisation/institute.

 

Printing of Innovative Stamps

A set of seven Circular Commemorative Postage Stamps was issued to mark the commencement of the 150th Birth Anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi. For the fi rst time in the history of independent India, circular stamps were issued. In a fi rst, a uniquely designed miniature sheet was issued on Hockey World Cup held at Bhubaneshwar, other than the usual rectangular and square shaped miniature sheets. The objective was to not only celebrate the spirit of hockey but also to attract the youth to the fold of philately. Another innovative Miniature Sheet was issued on the hill forts of Rajasthan in the shape of the logo of UNESCO as these hill forts are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

 

Deen Dayal SPARSH Yojana

A philately scholarship scheme called Deen Dayal SPARSH (Scholarship for Promotion of Aptitude and Research in Stamps as a Hobby) Yojana was introduced in 2017-18 to promote philately among children at a young age in a sustainable manner that can reinforce and supplement the academic curriculum in addition to providing a hobby that can help them relax and de-stress. Under this scheme, 920 scholarships are awarded throughout the country to students from Classes VI, VII, VIII and IX every year.

 

e-Sangam

National Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG) is a middleware infrastructure, being implemented by C-DAC Mumbai, acting as a standard based routing and message switch, which provides seamless interoperability and exchange of data across heterogeneous applications of geographically dispersed departments. e-Sangam also includes the National Services Directory.

 

Smart Virtual Classroom Facility

The objective of the project Smart Virtual Classroom (SVC) was to set up smart virtual classroom facilities in 3,204 government owned/controlled schools plus 50 District Institutes for Education and Training (DIET) in seven pilot states of Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tripura, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The focus is to improve the quality of education for students from remote/rural part of the country. Also, a centralised control system was established in Delhi at ERNET’s data centre which hosted the MCU, streaming/recording server and other associated component for multi party audio/ video interaction and also offl ine access of classroom sessions round the clock for learning/collaboration between all the stakeholders. The basic aim of the SVC project was to create technology enhanced classrooms that will foster opportunities for teaching and learning by integrating learning technology, such as, computers, electronic white boards, projectors, specialised software, interactive audio-video systems, etc.

 

Open Government Data

Ø  The Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India (www.data.gov.in)

Ø  It has been set up by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in compliance with the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP). The objective is to provide proactive access to government owned shareable data along with its usage information in open/machine readable format, through a wide area of network across the country, in a periodically updated manner, within the framework of various related policies, rules, and acts of the government.

 

e-Hospital Project

As part of the Digital India initiative, NIC has developed the e-Hospital, e-Blood Bank and Online Registration System (ORS) applications. ORS is the patient interface of e-Hospital for citizens to book online appointment for the hospitals. It is accessible over the internet and is a system to link hospitals across the country for online appointment and providing patient centric services like viewing lab reports, checking blood availability status, etc.

 

National Internet Exchange of India

NIXI is a not-for-profi t organisation set up under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 (now Section 8 under Companies Act, 2013) for peering of ISPs among themselves and routing the domestic traffi c within the country. NIXI is performing the following three activities: (i) internet exchanges; (ii) IN registry and internationalised domain names (IDNs); and (iii) National Internet Registry (NIR).

 

Telecommunications

 Communications sector has assumed the position of an essential infrastructure for socio-economic development in an increasingly knowledge-intensive world. The reach of telecom services to all regions of the country has become an integral part of an innovative and technologically-driven society. As a result of sustainable measures taken by the government over the years, the Indian Telecom sector has grown exponentially and has become the second largest network in the world, next only to China.

 

Department of Telecommunications

Telecommunication has been recognised all over the world as a powerful tool for development and poverty reduction through empowerment of the masses. The government has laid considerable emphasis on broadband for all as a part of its Digital India Campaign. Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is working towards addressing the digital divide by extending inclusive internet access to every citizen.

 

National Broadband Mission

Ø  National Broadband Mission (NBM) was launched in 2019 with a vision to fast-track growth of digital communication infrastructure, bridge the digital divide, facilitate digital empowerment and inclusion, and provide affordable and universal access of broadband for all. Some of the objectives of the Mission which is structured with strong three principles of universality, affordability and quality are: broadband access to all villages by 2022; facilitate universal and equitable access to broadband services for across the country and especially in rural and remote areas; signifi cantly improve quality of services for mobile and internet; develop innovative implementation models for Right of Way (RoW); and to work with states/UTs for having consistent policies pertaining to expansion of digital infrastructure including for RoW approvals required for laying OFC, etc.

Ø  National Digital Communications Policy-2018 envisions supporting India’s transition to a digitally empowered economy and society by establishing ubiquitous, resilient and affordable digital communications infrastructure and services. It envisages three missions viz., Connect India, Propel India and Secure India. The broad strategic objectives of the policy include - broadband for all, creating additional jobs in the digital communications sector, enhancing the contribution of digital communications sector to India’s GDP, enhancing India’s contribution to global value chains and ensuring digital sovereignty.

 

Hemisphere Properties India Ltd

Hemisphere Properties India Limited (HPIL) is another PSU under DoT. At the time of 25 per cent stake strategic sale in Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (Now Tata Communications Limited), surplus land measuring 773.13 acres was demarcated out of total 1230.13 acres of land at four stations and it was decided that surplus land will not be a part of disinvestment bid and would be managed by a separate realty company.

 

Harnessing Emerging Technologies

Among Network Technologies areas of focus include indigenous 5G Test Bed, Development of Online License Management System of DoT through a web-based portal, namely Simplifi ed Application for Registration and Licenses (SARLSSANCHAR) and Policy initiatives on Machine to Machine (M2M) Communications. High Throughput Satellites (HTS) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite are other areas of focus.

 

India’s ranking in Global indices

 India climbed 21 spots in Network Readiness Index 2021 (released in December 2021), and reached to 67th position. The report reveals that India not only improved its ranking but also improved NRI score from 41.57 in 2020 to 49.74 in 2021. In addition, India ranks among top 10 in ITU’s Global Cyber security Index (GO) 2020 (report released in 2021).

 

 

 

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