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Palnar village in the naxal-affected Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh has emerged as a champion for the cause of digital literacy and empowerment. A small village with a population of 1,961 people has shown high levels of enrolment following an outreach campaign `DigiDhan Abhiyan’ launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).  

Here, the Common Service Centre (CSC) – e-seva kendras — along with a team of bankers, district officials and technical officials met the citizens of the village and trained them through various audio/ video material on digital transformation and benefits of digital adoption. The meetings were conducted at the Gram Panchayat Bhawan at Palnar to educate and convince the merchants and people to adopt Digital payments.

The teams also demonstrated the procedure of obtaining Point-of-Sale (POS) for merchants and the usage for the villagers during the meetings and training sessions. The villagers were also shown videos of various digital methods like Unified Payment Interface (UPI), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) to get them to understand the systems better. The teams also extended their support to the merchants by enabling then in getting the Point-of-Sale (PoS) from the banks and were also given training on the usage.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) rural Common Service Centre (CSC) network through its massive outreach campaign `DigiDhan Abhiyan’, aims to reach over 1 Crore (10 million) rural citizens through this massive outreach program. The campaign aims to cover 2 lakh Common Service Centres (CSC) across the rural areas and enable them to become Digital Financial Education hubs. The CSCs will train people about the various digital financial solutions and also enable them to use various modes of Electronic Payment Systems (EPS). The campaign also aims to sensitize merchants and vendors on the use of EPS. The campaign will look to provide people with a multitude of choices, so that they can choose the method basis its relevance and comfort for them. The focus will be on creating an enabling environment and identify solutions for all segments of the population who want to go digital. It will be a combination of physical outreach through the Common Service Centres (CSC) and Digital Tools.

Apart from various training sessions for merchants and villagers, the Common Service Centres (CSC) also opened a shopping complex to keep coordinating with the newly enabled cashless merchants & villagers. The Common Service Centres are also acting as micro ATM for the villagers through its successful module of ‘Apna dhan’. With all of the activities and initiatives through the Common Service Centres (CSC), the village saw a complete turn-around and has gone digital with the use of e-Wallets, and Cards, Point-of-Sale (PoS) machines.”

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In keeping with the changing times and ease the process of issuing passport, the Government has tweaked the passport policy and simplified a number of rules that are expected to make it easier for the citizens to procure a passport. 

According to a release of the External Affairs Ministry on Friday, the number of steps being taken would help single mothers, orphaned children, and sadhus obtain passports with ease.

The government has relaxed the need for birth certificates in the application process, Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd.) V.K. Singh declared that passport-related grievances would now be handled on the social media platform of Twitter. 

“We had to resolve issues on minors, women, birth certificates, and therefore a three-member committee was formed by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Women and Child Development that gave the recommendations,” he said. The new rules will eliminate the role of non-government agents and touts.

The new rules for online application require the applicant to provide the name of father or mother or legal guardian. “This would enable single parents to apply for passports for their children and facilitate issue of passports where the name of either the father or the mother is not required to be printed at the request of the applicant,” the release said. 

The annexures have been brought down to nine from the 15 required under the Passport Rules, 1980. The new annexures would be in the form of “self declaration” on a plain paper. The new rules allow faster processing for married applicants as they can apply without attaching marriage certificate. “We are moving to be on a par with countries with a highly liberalised process,” said Gen. Singh.

“The passport application form does not require the application to provide the name of her/his spouse in case of separated or divorced persons. Such applicants would not be required to provide even the Divorce Decree,” the press release said.

Holy men can now apply for a passport with the name of their spiritual guru, instead of biological parents. However, they would have to provide a document such as voter ID, which records the name of the guru against the column for parent’s name.Applicants can submit PAN Card, birth certificate, voter identity card, Aadhaar, driving license, students can submit transfer certificate/school leaving certificates. Online passport application form now requires the applicant to provide the name of any one among the father, mother or legal guardian.

 No marriage certificates needed for married applicants.

 No need to name the spouse in cases of applicants who are divorcees.

 Orphaned children can submit a declaration from their respective orphanages while sants can name their spiritual gurus.”

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The UN Security Council vote against Israel’s settlement activities in Palestinian territories after the US abstained, instead of its customary move of vetoing any resolution that denounces the Israeli occupation, is seen as a rebuff to the Jewish state although it may not have any practical impact on the ground.

The 15-member council on Friday voted 14-0 in favour of a resolution demanding the halt of settlement activity by Israel on occupied Palestinian territory. The resolution was put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal, a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and US president-elect Donald Trump.

Surprisingly under instructions from the outgoing president Barack Obama the US abstained from the voting, defying pressure from Trump and lobbying by Israel to veto the measure. It is the first resolution the Security Council adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years. The US abstention was a surprise as in 2011 the Obama administration had exercised its veto on a similar move.

Understandably the US decision has infuriated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who rejected the resolution terming it shameful and anti-Israel.

“Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms,” a statement released by his office said. “The Obama administration not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN, it colluded with it behind the scenes,” it said. “Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.”

The United States’ abstention was the biggest rebuke in recent history to long-standing ally Israel, allowing the Security Council to condemn its settlements and continuing construction in Palestinian territory as a “”flagrant violation”” of international law, Middle East observers said.

The US action has somewhat affected its ties with Israel and Trump who will be taking over as the 45th president of the US on January 20 will have to do the political manoeuvering to undo the damage.

Trump, who has already said he intends to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv, symbolically, to occupied Jerusalem, tweeted: “”As to the UN, things will be different after Jan 20th.””

The Netanyahu government has illegally sanctioned the construction of colonies in occupied East Jerusalem as state policy — seizing lands, bulldozing buildings and imposing the harshest judicial and administrative sanctions on Palestinians who dare oppose or object to the property theft.

The UN General Assembly has repeatedly and overwhelmingly condemned the Israeli action, but this is for the first time the Security Council has censured Israel for its settlement policy in Palestinian areas.

In the past weeks, Israeli parliament, the Knesset began the process of amending its laws to allow for the annexation of illegal outpost colonies across the West Bank, a move that has been condemned by Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole.

Palestine has described the resolution as a total rejection of extremist forces in Israel. “”This is a day of victory for international law, a victory for civilised language and negotiation and a total rejection of extremist forces in Israel,”” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

The resolution said Israel’s settlements on Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have “”no legal validity.”” It demanded a halt to “”all Israeli settlement activities””, saying this “”is essential for salvaging the two-state solution””. It described the settlement building as a “major obstacle” to peace.

Middle East observers view the UNSC decision as a “”milestone”” but feel that in all probability it would remain “”ink on paper”” due to Israel’s long history in disregarding the international community’s will and that it does not entail measures that obligate Israel to adhere by the decision. 

The resolution represents consensus among the international community on the illegality of the Israeli settlement and affirms the historical right of Palestinians to their land, said Jordanian Minister of State for Media Affairs and Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani in a statement. 

Meanwhile, Israel on Sunday summoned the ambassadors of UN Security Council member states that voted in favour of the resolution, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said. The US envoy was summoned by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. 

Israel’s Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that Israel was cutting civilian coordination with Palestinians.”

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Villagers living in remote areas of Uttarakhand bordering Nepal are so fed up with poor mobile connectivity in their areas that they landed in Delhi last week to protest against alleged discrimination by the Department of Telecommunications. They camped at Jantar Mantar in the Capital on an indefinite sit-in protest for a week before politicians and social activists from the state convinced them to end their stir and assured to take their fight to higher ups in Delhi. 

Through their dharna, they tried to contest the claims of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding success of his demonetization drive and people adopting electronic modes of payments. The residents of around a dozen towns and over a hundred villages sharing border with Nepal have been demanding proper, reliable and efficient telecom network in the region, but now the story has taken a peculiar turn as post-demonetization these people have been left in lurch as there is no money in banks and ATMs are not working due to poor connectivity. Moreover, irregular and unreliable mobile networks have become a major stumbling block in their efforts to join various modes of e-payments.

These people from towns like Dharchula, Munshiyari, Bangapani, Tejam and some villages of Tanakpur area rely on mobile networks of neighbouring countries to communicate and forced to pay international calling rates to stay in touch. With local and state telecom and government officials not listening to their grievances, they wrote several letters to topmost functionaries in the government including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha and his predecessor Ravi Shankar Prasad which also remained unanswered.

Flashing SIM cards of Nepalese mobile companies which are being used by people living in and around Dharchula and Munshiyari, former Congress MLA Harish Dhami, who also joined the stir, said people are ready to embrace digital payments, but without mobile connectivity people of border areas are suffering as they do not have money to spend.

“”The connectivity in the area is a poor 30 per cent and I want it should be 100 per cent. Why should people suffer due to incompetence and neglect of the Centre? People in my area are forced to pay international roaming rates to use mobile phones as they have no domestic telecom network and depend on mobile towers of neighbouring country. All claims of Mr. Modi about e-payments and ‘Digital India’ are nothing but a big sham. It is not just about cashless transactions, the entire issue poses big question mark on our national security,”” said Mr. Dhami, who heads Uttarakhand Forest Development Corporation, 

Showing two SIM cards of Nepalese operators which he uses, Pritam Singh, a resident of Tejam that border Nepal, said while the government talks of telecom revolution and robust mobile networks, the fact is lakhs of people living in border areas have to depend mostly on mobile networks of Nepal Telecom. “”We live in strategically located areas adjoining Nepal where nation’s security comes first, but government cares least for us. Till now we were somehow managing things, but post demonetization drive, life has become difficult for us,”” he adds.   

(Sandeep Joshi is a freelance journalist and founder-editor of Uttarakhand Panorama, a digital platform dedicated to the news from Uttarakhand) “

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Post demonetization, a lot of transformation in Indian business has been taking place. One of the most notable changes the common public has adopted pertains to shifting towards cashless economy through digital payment systems. Digital payments have jumped a whopping 300 per cent in the last one month itself. All this has created the sudden requirement of POS machines. India needs to add 20 lakhs new PoS (point of sale) machines in quick time to give push to cashless transactions. In this scenario, data safety and e-frauds need to be addressed by the Government as e-payments and cashless transactions continue to rise in India.

In this backdrop, Association of India Communication Multimedia and Infrastructure (CMAI), while supporting Prime Minister’s push for a cashless economy that will move India to advanced economy and corruption free India, has urged the Government to put in place a robust system to tackle e-frauds and give a push to domestic manufacturing of PoS machines and its software development under the Make in India programme.

Extending full support and cooperation to making Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to digital payment a success, CMAI President Prof. N.K. Goyal, who is also Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA’s)  Chairman Emeritus, said the Government of India should immediately come out with a policy specifically for manufacturing of PoS and development of its software so that all safety of all transactions in ensured.

 Ã¢Â€ÂœGovernment reports say during next few months 20 lakhs new PoS machines will be added to 15 lakhs existing ones. When Crores of people are joining digital payments movement daily, safety of data remains paramount which can be ensured only by pushing indigenous manufacturing of PoS machines. We cannot depend on foreign manufacturers if we want to make our economy cashless and all digital economy should also add to Make in India” said Prof NK Goyal.

Prof. Goyal pointed out that majority of PoS machines currently are imported primarily from the US, Europe and China and therefore data security remains a big challenge. Though Government exemption to BIS labeling of imported PoS machines till March next year is a welcome move, he however said the Government needs to come out with stringent norms to ensure and enhance data safety and security.

CMAI requests appropriate legal framework to address digital payment frauds to protect consumers if they lose money during digital transactions.

“India does not have proper laws in this regard as of now. The only remedy available is under Information Technology Act, which largely deals with cyber breaches. All cases of money lost in digital payments may not fall in the category of cyber thefts/breaches. With proliferations of digital payments across India in big and small towns, there may be widespread cases of small amounts here and there throughout the Country. To address them in timely manner, CMAI requests that there is need for separate digital payment laws and digital payment courts across India,” Prof. Goyal added.

There is also need for legal framework for data storage, data protection. In US the data has to be preserved in encrypted form. India does not have any legal system for such matters. He said draft legal framework should also include standards on refunds, complaint redressal system, cash backs, compliance to various policies and procedures need to display on Company’s website details of complaints received/addressed, money refunded and action taken on regular basis, cash back policy etc.

CMAI suggests mandatory cyber audit by RBI or Cyber Command Group at regular intervals. “Presently audit has been mandated as once a year. But this is not enough as cyber threats are regular and continuous, and audit is required at least once a quarter if not every month. The audit by Company appointed auditors is not the answer to financial security. We also request a high level Cyber Security Command to be established, which should have legal authority to conduct spot audits as and when it feels the need,” Prof NK Goyal said.

An appropriate and robust mechanism needs to be developed for reporting losses and recovery of money lost/theft/frauds in digital payments. “We request an institutionalized policy for redressal of complaints of citizens with regard to digital payments. There is a tendency of keeping money lost during mismatch in e-transactions in dispute and wait for compensation. CMAI requests that the refund be made immediately and compensation etc. be decided in due course of time,” Prof. Goyal added.

CMAI requests immediate action plan for the projected 5-lakh cyber experts needed as per the cyber policy. CMAI suggests that let the training of cyber experts and digital payment experts be assigned to a telecom PSU like BSNL, TCIL etc., as they have large scale existing facilities for training and tie up with AICTE also. CMAI has also sought a special drive to launch a special drive to make people aware about safe use of e-payments. The funds available with Cyber Department and USOF can be used for this purpose. There is big infrastructure available with various State Universities/Private Colleges which are available for immediate use. Hence the telecom PSUs should also be mandated to use the already available existing infrastructure with various State and Private Universities/Engineering Colleges by declaring them as Center of Excellence for Cyber Security Training.

CMAI requests appropriate strategy and awareness for guidance to help citizens and organizations to plan and prepare recovery from a cyber theft, funds frauds, money lost during e transactions and money fraudulently withdrawn by someone. The moot point is how does an organization plan to address the system attacked due to cyber and restore the services immediately.

Providing POS is only one part of the whole scenario of capability building. There are several other areas that need immediate attention of realizing the goal of maximum possible level of cashless economy in the country such as Awareness of consumers for the importance of cashless economy so that they volunteer to abstain from cash transactions, training of the vending personals involved in the transactions of money so that operations are smooth, establishing systems that ensure the smooth and uninterrupted connectivity between bankers and the points where sales are affected, security of money to ensure that all possibilities of cyber crimes are eliminated and even the not so conversant consumer is assured of the safety and security of money and establishment of the appropriate system to affect immediate redressal and recovery of money if some fraudulent transaction has happened.”

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Civil society groups have asked the government to declare malnutrition a national emergency and improve public accountability and transparency to ensure equitable and timely access to services through existing schemes.It has recommended establishment of an empowered National food and Nutrition Commission chaired by the Prime Minister and similarinstitutional arrangements at the State level to be headed by the Chief Ministers of the respective States are necessary to ensure action on ground.

In a joint civil society declaration “The Delhi Declaration on Sustainable Development Goal for Health 2016’’ the civil society groups have asked the State and Central governments to bring nutrition at the forefront of public policy with a focus on the `First 1000 days—from pregnancy to the first two years of a child—promote life cycle approached of nutrition, health and education support to adolescent girls.

Address all forms of malnutrition such as under-nutrition, obesity, micronutrient deficiency, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in a comprehensive and integrated approach through revitalizing food and farming system, promoting nutrition sensitive agriculture, strengthening food value chain, integrated sanitation including hygiene and safe drinking water, the declaration said.

To bring out a policy breakthrough in revolutionizing dry land agriculture, the declaration said Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for minor millets and coarse grains that is twice the procurement prices of rise and conversion of all Anganwadi centers into daylong crèches so that the 0-3 cohort could be incentivised to attend.

To check unfair trade practices and ensure access to safe and nutritious food, the Food Safety Authority should work in a responsive manner to ensure access to safe and nutritious food. Linking NREGA to promote kitchen garden and bio fortified crops on government-owned land and expediting the implementation of Section 4 B of the National Food Security Act, 2013, under which pregnant women are entitled to at least Rs 6,000/- as maternity benefits are some other suggestions made in the Delhi declaration.

“”To work towards creating an enabling environment and develop mechanism for transparency and accountability and ensure periodic progress review of targets and indicators to feed into policies and programmes so that no one is left behind. To empower the local government institutionsto ensure accountability and promote sustainable food and nutrition security,”” the declaration said.

To complement the efforts of the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) and the AWW to spread nutrition awareness at the household level and address the chronic issue of exclusion and gender disparity, the declaration has suggested promoting women change leaders at each hamlet as hunger and malnutrition.  A composite incentive scheme with reward and recognition of grass root workers and volunteers to be designed to increase the morale and motivation, it said while adding finding context-specific solutions to key problems and re-energize and reform India’s Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), agriculture, food and health sector programme.

In addition to establishing a National Grid of naturally bio fortified gardens and bio fortified crops, the declaration has said to promote the decentralized bottom up planning, intra-departmental coordination and management, monitoring and empowerment (training/orientation) as the bedrock of coordination, convergence and governance.

Introduction of special programmes and institutional mechanism, for tribal concentrated blocks and districts to focus on food insecure and malnutrition hot spots and to protect public interest and ensure effective enforcement of the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (Regulation of production, supply and distribution), Act 1992, it said.

To enhance data integrity and set the nutrition surveillance, data and baseline, the country’s nutritious rich foods, plants and species specifically grown in the forest area should be mapped. Introduce occupation based nutrition indexing to provide informed choices to each citizen, cutting edge nationwide nutrition survey, nutrition Surveillance system, with quick response in vulnerable hot spots. Introduce IT enabled monitoring to track the services and supplies, the declaration said.”

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All the excitement and wait in the first half of the 2016 for the 48 lakh employees and 55 lakh pensioners, over the implementation of the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Panel recommendations at an estimated cost of Rs. 1.02 lakh crore with 23.55 per cent hike in pay and allowances, has died down. The positive sentiments have now become negative with the employees threatening a full-fledged strike over the delay or impasse on the unsettled issues on allowances.

The Federation of the Central  Government employees and Pensioners now says it feels betrayed by NDA Govt. by breach of assurance given by Group of Cabinet Ministers including Rajnath Singh,  Arun Jaitely and Suresh Prabhu regarding increase in Minimum Pay and Fitment formula.

According to the Federation Secretary General M. Krishnan, this is the worst pay revision after 2nd CPC report in 1960. Government implemented the report without any modification suggested by Staff side (JCM). In 1960, the employees went on five days strike.

He maintains that the Central Government Pensioners and Family Pensioners betrayed by NDA Government by not implementing Option-I (parity) recommended by 7th CPC and accepted by Cabinet. He claims that three lakh Gramin Dak Sevaks of the Postal Department feel betrayed by NDA Government by not extending the benefits of 7th CPC to them and also by not publishing the separate one-man committee report already submitted to the Government.

In a call for the strike he has conveyed to the employees that thousands of casual, part-time, contingent employees, daily rated labourers and contract workers have been betrayed by the NDA Government by not regularizing their services and by not revising their wages on the principle of Ã¢Â€ÂœEqual Pay for Equal Work”.

7th CPC Submitted its report after 21 months on November 19, 2015. Even after 13 months, the NDA Government the issue related to allowances remains unresolved.

Mr. Krishnan has maintained that there is no negotiated settlement on Confederation’s 21 Point Charter of demands which includes increase in minimum pay, Fitment formula, no reduction of HRA rate, Revision of all allownaces, Restoration of abolished Advances, Option-1 for pensioners, Scrap New Pension System, Autonomous bodies wage revision, GDS Issues, Casual Labour issues, MACP promotional hierarchy and “Very good” bench mark, filling up of vacancies, removal of 5% compassionate appointment restriction, Five promotions, LDC/UDC pay upgradation, Parity in pay scales with Central Secretariat Staff, removal aof CCL adverse condition, equal pay for equal work.

According to him, on persistent demand of the staff side (JCM), the Group of Ministers assured that the issue of increase in the Minimum wage and Fitment formula will be referred to a High Level Committee and the Committee will submit its report to the Government within four months. Now six months are over but there is no high level Committee report.

The centre had set up a `Committee on Allowances’ which met last month under the chairmanship of Secretary, Finance (Expenditure) with representatives of the Central government unions. National Council/Joint Consultative Machinary for Central government employees say the unions are getting restive over several issues. “

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Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said Opposition will wholeheartedly support Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his actions against corrupt people. Addressing a press conference in the national Capital  along with other opposition parties including TMC, RJD, and DMK, Mr Gandhi said along with fighting corruption, the Prime Minister should also answer allegations of personal corruption against him. 

He continued his criticism of the government on demonetization scheme saying it has failed in curbing blackmoney. Mr Gandhi said Prime Minister Modi should disclose the real reason for demonetisation, and answer who is responsible for sufferings of poor people. He said that December 30 is approaching but there is no improvement in the situation.

Sharing the platform with the Congress Vice President, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked whether Mr Modi will take responsibility and resign if things remain unresolved even after 50 days. She alleged that demonetisation is a mega scam and accused the Central government of destroying the federal structure of the country. Ms Banerjee also alleged that country is going through undeclared economic emergency.

The ruling BJP was quick to react, terming the Congress-led opposition meet against demonetisation as a flop show of Rahul Gandhi. The party said the bubble of opposition unity had burst before it could even take off. Only eight of the 16 parties which had joined hands in Parliament against the NDA government over note ban were present on Wednesday.Talking to reporters in New Delhi, senior BJP leader and Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad took potshots at Mr. Gandhi saying it was increasingly becoming clear that he lacked maturity. He said the opposition’s exercise was laughable as those who were behind scams like 2G spectrum and Saradha chit fund had come together to attack Prime Minister Modi.”

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The Medical Technology Association of India (MTaI) has expressed `surprised and disappointment’ with the decision to include Drug Eluting Stents under Schedule 1 of Drug Price Control Order, 2013.

The industry has been working closely with the pricing authorities to bring transparency on the pricing issue and arrive at scientific methodology to differentiate among various value-added versions of Drug Eluting Stents. The decision disregards the innovative nature of the medical technology sector which has evolved over the last 20 years globally and is still evolving, a statement issued by MTaI has said.

MTaI is an association of research-based medical technology companies who have made investments by setting up large number of R&D centres and manufacturing plants in India. MTaI represents a wide spectrum of the medical device and equipment industry with global experience in innovation and manufacturing.

MTaI is also deeply concerned with the treatment implications on patients, who may need different and innovative products for their individual and evolving medical needs. Such a decision would not only take away a clinical choice from a physician, to use different products for different patient needs but also take away patient’s right to choose for their own medical care based on quality and innovation of a product.

Over the last 10 years, medical technology sector in India has been struggling to get a distinct identity with clear definition in Drugs and Cosmetics Act of India. Any decisions like this without resolving the fundamental issue on medical device regulation further complicates the matter for all stakeholders, the statement said.

“In fact, the industry has taken a number of steps to drive access of the advanced medical technologies for a large pool of patients with its voluntarily offer to provide one type of high-quality, FDA approved stent at a CGHS approved rate of Rs. 25,000 to the pricing authorities few months back. In addition, it is partnering with a number of state government reimbursement programs by providing world-class products at the lowest prices. Hence, to enable patient access without compromising patient health and quality of outcomes, we urge the pricing authority to use scientific rationale in the decision making instead of using broad-brush of drug rules on this small yet highly innovative and vital small yet highly innovative and vital life-saving sector. A non-scientific implementation may lead to major obstacles in the natural evolution of this sector and create implementation snags leading to morbidity and mortality traps,’’ it has said.

MTaI has asked the government to have a holistic view on the decision by involving all the concerned stakeholders i.e. hospitals, physicians, companies in the discussion on price regulations to arrive at a decision which is best for patient health. Also create a vibrant environment for the medical device sector to make innovative therapies accessible to patients and uphold & strengthen the state of healthcare already achieved in the country, it said.

MTaI looks to partner with Government of India in setting a roadmap for growth of medical devices sector by bringing in even bigger investments in this sector, through ‘Make in India and through technology upgradation and dissemination in the provider space.”

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The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) rural Common Service Centre (CSC) network through its massive outreach campaign Ã¢Â€Â˜DigiDhan Abhiyan’ has enrolled over one crore rural citizens for digital payments since its launch earlier this month. 

Over 3 lakh merchants have started offering digital payment options to rural customers across various districts and blocks in rural India. Within a month of the launch of the campaign, the uptake of digital payments by rural Indians has already crossed 1 crore.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics & Information Technology said, “The rapid pace at which rural citizens are adopting digital methods of payment demonstrates their support and enthusiasm to be a part of the Digital Transformation story of our country.”

Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have recorded the highest number of enrolments with citizen enrolment crossing 15 lakh and 12.5 lakh rural citizens respectively. Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh have recorded the highest number of merchant enrolments crossing 60000 merchants each. Other States in the country like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Andhra are also contributing to the high digital enrolment of citizens.

The Common Service Centres (CSC) and the Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE) have reached out to citizens innovatively to impart digital literacy. Gurdeep Singh, a Village Level Entrepreneur of Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh has converted his van into a mobile training centre equipped with education material and has taken it to several villages in the district to educate people on Digital Payments and systems. Gurdeep Singh says, “The response from the citizens has been phenomenal. The ripple effect of the mobilization on ground to educate citizens through CSC’s has been a tremendous success story. Citizens have been mobilizing each other to proactively go digital in our outreach camps and this is a very encouraging sign of adoption of digital payments by all sections of Indians.”

The effectiveness of this campaign is demonstrated in the high levels of enrolment from the tribal village of Palnar, located in the naxal-hit region of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh. The Common Service Centre (CSC) along with a team of bankers, district officials and technical officials met the citizens of the village and trained them through various audio/ video material on digital transformation and benefits of digital adoption. The team also worked intensely with merchants and citizens to get them to practice digital transactions on a regular basis. The village has now gone digital with the use of e-Wallets, Cards, Point-of-Sale (PoS) machines etc.

Another success story comes from district Jashpur in Chhattisgarh, where a Gram Panchayat ‘Jariya’ Sarpanch led an active team and reached out to each villager to educate them on digital payments. The campaign was driven through hands-on training sessions, door-to-door outreach with a major focus on the merchants. The Gram Panchayat has now received a Certificate of 100% Aadhaar seeding of all bank accounts in the village.

The DigiDhan Abhiyan aims to cover 2 lakh Common Service Centres (CSC) across the rural areas and enable them to become Digital Financial Education centres. The CSCs will train people about the various digital financial solutions and also enable them to use various modes of Electronic Payment Systems (EPS). The campaign also aims to sensitize merchants and vendors on the use of EPS.

The campaign will look to provide people with a multitude of choices, so that they can choose the method basis its relevance and comfort for them. The focus will be on creating an enabling environment and identify solutions for all segments of the population who want to go digital. It will be a combination of physical outreach through the Common Service Centres (CSC) and Digital Tools.

“The DigiDhan Abhiyan outreach in rural India through the Common Service Centres reflects citizen’s willingness to go digital and the acceptance of new methods of digital transactions which are convenient and easy to access / use. We will continue to leverage newer teDea
“