Social and structural change through digital India programme: Innovations and emerging challenges

Technology has the potential to bring a revolutionary change in people’s lives. But to tap this potential, policy perspectives need to be informed by a larger social purpose of bridging the digital divide and getting the marginalised groups and peripheral communities connected with the technological mainstream. With its emphasis on digital empowerment, Digital India programme of the present regime tends to make the most of the available technological resource for improving administration and delivery of public services. In pursuance of this objective, the government rather than completely revamping the existing structures and policies has rebooted them to bring them in line with the envisioned goal of wider social outreach. A wider governance network has been created between state and non-state agencies for fulfilling the said purpose. The paper observes and argues that the new mode of structural change for better alignment of public policies with Digital India is being pursued much in the pattern of structural layering and in this process challenges have been experienced at multiple levels.