Digitally sufficient?

 The 21st century is an era of technological wonders and digitization. India is pushing her limits to embrace the domains of digitization. But as India takes a step towards building a cashless economy and engaging the whole of India through the government's 'Digital India' scheme, Bharat seems to be in a plight to come out of its orthodox nature and embrace the modern viewpoint. 

Bharat usually refers to the rural India in which resides more than half of the country's population. The erratic internet connection, low level of proliferation of smartphones and most importantly the lack of trust in online transactions owe to the problems of dizitalizing of Bharat. Banking and Internet are a new concept to them and the fear of the unknown grasps them specially in case of cashless transaction. A large part of the people are illiterate and daily labours who earn in small amounts and are in a hand to mouth situation. To them having a bank account and going to all the banking fiasco is a waste of their valuable time. They go more for earning than for learning. Cashless economy is the backbone of a developed nation. So how will India develop if Bharat thinks that the use of mobile wallets and ATM cards (plastic money) is a complete waste of time. Even if they have smartphones with 3G facility they are unwilling to use e-wallets out of the fear that their money will vanish. People are happy using Facebook and WhatsApp on their phone and even surfing the internet but they are adamant in not using the online money.

Government is trying its best to educate the rural India through various interactive programs and has made a small progress. But it is needed to ensure the safety of online transactions. Nobody wants to part with their hard earned money to some fraud company. The government needs to ensure that efficient steps would be taken in minimal time in such cases. They need to conduct programs to teach people how to identify between a genuine and a fraud company while transacting online. But the most important thing to do would be to educate the mass as fast as is rationally possible. For it is this illiteracy that is stopping the rural mass from going online.

However, all is not lost as two villages in India viz. Akodara and Narshinghapur have already earned the coveted title of being digital villages. Digitization is more of an evolutionary process than a choice. The demonetization if not anything else has helped create new bank account and has rendered the inactive accounts operative. It has forced people to learn the banking system. The Reliance group is launching 4G enabled cheap feature phones to help the rural mass connect to the internet. Lastly it is very important to say that not only the government but it is also our duty to help digitally ignorant people learn the system.

                                                     

                                                                                                                                                         (Article by Somrita Das)

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