Is ‘Digital india’ inclusive? a study in context of gender and rural-urban dichotomy
- Bihar Journal of Public Administration
- 16(2), July-Dec. 2019. p. 284-292
Digital technology in public service delivery system and good governance is the need of the hour. Though, e-Governance was introduced in India since the dawn of 21st century, yet the ambitious flagship programme ‘Digital India’, launched by Modi Government in 2015, claims to transform India into a digitally empowered society with digital technology accessible to all. As such, it makes an urgent imperative to address the question – whether it is accessible equally to both the urban-rural and male-female population. After the passage of four years of the implementation of Digital India, it irks a student of public administration to assess the progress made in context of its inclusiveness. Thus, the present paper intends to assess the inclusiveness of the programme in context of rural-urban and gender divides in India. The paper finds that even after four years, there is a big gap in users of digital technology in rural-urban and male-female divides. Rural and female population are more likely to be far behind their urban and male counterparts in context of getting benefits of public service delivery through the digital technology. - Reproduced
Digital India, Gender, Rural-Urban, Public-service, Internet.