The Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the extension of the Digital India programme with an outlay of 14,903 crores to boost digital initiatives in skilling, cyber security, high-performance computing and simplifying technology for masses, among other areas.

Briefing the media after the cabinet meeting, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the outlay has been approved for a 5-year period from 2021-2022 to 2025-2026. "The budget was allocated from time to time as per requirement. We have made changes in the schemes for which approval was required," Vaishnaw said, adding the Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the extension of the programme with the outlay of Rs 14,903 crore. The extended Digital India programme will simply add on to the work that has already been done through the programme.

Under the extended programme, nine more super computers will be added to the National Supercomputing Mission (NCM) in addition to the 18 super computers that have been deployed under NCM. In March 2015, the government approved installation of 70 supercomputers under NCM by 2022 with an outlay of Rs 4,500 crore.

Ashwini Vaishnaw said the Digilocker app will be extended to micro, small and medium enterprises to help them avail credit and other services by verifying their document stores in the app and that under the approved programme 6.25 lakh IT professionals will be reskilled and upskilled and 2.65 lakh people will be trained in Information Security under the Information Security and Education Awareness Phase Programme.

The minister added that a cyber awareness course for 12 crore college students will be conducted under the programme and also said that the National Knowledge Network which is a network of 1,787 universities and research and development institutes, will be further developed into Digital India Infoways.

Under the extended Digital India programme, new initiatives in the area of cyber security, including the development of tools and integration of more than 200 sites with the National Cyber Coordination Centre, will be carried out. The extended programme has a provision for funding support to 1,200 startups based in tier 2 and 3 cities, the minister said.  

"CertIn, which does cyber forensics, emergency response and cyber diagnosis will be expanded massively," said Ashwini Vaishnaw and also added that "A centre of excellence will also be set up in the field of artificial intelligence for its use in agriculture, health and sustainability".

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