Published on 28 Jan 2025
Digital Literacy is the ability of individuals and communities to understand and use digital technologies for meaningful actions within life situations. As per India Inequality Report 2022: Digital Divide by Oxfam, only 38% of households in India are digitally literate.
Significance of Digital Literacy in India
Financial Inclusion: Digitally literate population can avail banking services and become part of the formal financial system.
Example: Digitally Literate Street vendors are able to enhance their business by using UPI QR code at their shops. The daily record of transactions can also help in availing credit.
Equitable Education: Digitally Illiterate Children are not able to access quality education or attend virtual classrooms.
Example: During pandemic lockdown, children who were not familiar with use of tabs and teaching apps were left out.
Augment Health Infrastructure: Digitally literate population would be able to leverage tele-medicine to bridge the gap due to poor brick and mortar infrastructure.
Example: eSanjeevani OPD enables doctor consultations to be accessible from the patient’s residence regardless of location.
Prevent Marginalization: Enhanced pace of digitization of governance has made the digitally illiterate elderly population vulnerable to inaccessibility of government benefits and schemes.
Example: Elderly citizens face difficulty in engaging with complexly designed interfaces of government websites. Only 30% of adults over the age of 50 are digitally literate, compared to 60% of adults aged 18-29
Employment and Income Generation: Digitally Literate youth are able to capitalize on the effective use of the internet to get employed.
Example: Low Internet rates giving rise to social media influencers, Gig and Platform economy etc
Effective Service Delivery: Last Mile delivery of government services via e governance projects.
Example: e-RUPI, a one-time contactless, cashless voucher-based mode of payment that helps users redeem the voucher to avail government services
Reduce Digital Crimes: Due to large scale digitization of every aspect of life from Finance to Social Media, digital literacy of citizens is necessary to prevent them being victims of digital fraud.
Example: A digitally literate person would avoid opening spam messages and would not fall for phishing attempts.
Development of e-Commerce: Digitally literate citizens will be able to optimally utilize the e-commerce platform and thus facilitate better access to quality products at a reasonable rate.
Example: Government Initiatives like Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) will be successful only with a digitally literate population.
Government Initiatives to Enhance Digital Literacy
Digital India campaign: A flagship initiative aimed at transforming India into a digitally empowered society. Digital Literacy is one of the three core components of the program.
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA): It aims to make six crore rural households digitally literate by providing them with access to digital devices, internet connectivity, and digital literacy training.
National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM): The programme aims to impart digital literacy skills to at least one member from every household in India. The program offers training modules on basic computer operations, internet usage, online safety, and e-governance services.
Mission Karmayogi: Initiated a partnership project called ‘Capacity Building by MSDE in Microsoft Digital Productivity Skills’ that aims to enhance the functional computer literacy of nearly 2.5 million civil servants of Government of India (GoI).
New India Literacy Programme (NILP): In Alignment with NEP 2020, offers critical life skills which include Digital Literacy as one of its components.
Thus, ensuring equitable digital literacy should be the prime agenda for the government to improve the efficiency of service delivery on every social and economic dimension.
Social Justice
Digital literacy
Digital divide
New India Literacy Programme
NILP
Mission Karmayogi
National Digital Literacy Mission
NDLM
Digital India campaign
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan
PMGDISHA
inlcusion
digital crime
e- commerce
General Studies Paper 2
Social Justice
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Mission Karmayogi
New India Literacy Program (NILP)