Indian PM Modi Announces Long-awaited Digital Projects

India celebrated their independence from the British Empire for the 74^th time this past August 15^th.  It was also the day Prime Minister Modi announced the launching of three Digital India projects that could result in new company formation in India:

• the National Digital Health Mission
• a new cyber security policy
• the promise of optical fiber connectivity to 600,000 villages over the next 1,000 days.

The following is a breakdown of these three monumental projects.

National Digital Health Mission

The beginning of India’s new digital health infrastructure took place in 2017 when the National Health Policy was implemented.  It proposed a National Digital Health Authority and released the blueprint for it two years later (July, 2019).  This past August 7^th was the release date of the NHDM’s (National Digital Health Mission’s) which outlined the digital registration of:

• doctors
• hospitals
• digital clinical decision systems
• digital personal health records
• pharmacies
• insurance companies

As a result, patients can now share their information between doctors and hospitals in a digital format by simply creating a Health ID.  Furthermore, they can choose the specific documents they want to share with whom for as long as they want. To get the government benefits, people will need to connect their health IDs with the Aadhaar cards. In early weeks of July, NDHM began consultation and collaborations with insurance companies, large hospitals, laboratories and licensing authorities to ensure smooth functioning when the scheme is implemented. Other key features would include tele-medicine, data analytics tools and online pharmacy.

New Cyber Security Policy

The existing cyber security policy was born when whistleblower Edward Snowden said that India’s domestic issues were being monitored by the US National Security Agency.  The scope and sophistication of cyber attacks and intrusions has increased dramatically over the past decade and are now targeting critical information infrastructure as well as sensitive business and personal data.  Consequently, this poses a serious threat to the national economy and security.  Due to a number of technological developments, there are significant challenges to contend with in the cyber environment such as:

• access to overseas data
• cyberspace law enforcement
• data privacy and protection
• global cooperation regarding cybercrimes and cyber terrorists
• misuse of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms

Additionally, this will likely require the revamping and revitalization of existing structures.  This may also have an impact on the passage of data protection legislation by a Joint Select Committee in India’s Parliament when attracting new companies in India.

Optical Fiber Connectivity

The Indian Government is referring to this as the “largest connectivity project in the world today.”  BharatNet (Bharat Broadband Network Limited) which is governed by the Government of India’s Department of Telecommunications, is the country’s telecom infrastructure provider.  Under this project, roughly 800,000 kilometers or nearly 500 miles of OFC or optical fiber cable to cover more than 2,50,000-gram panchayats with an estimated cost of the project to be over $6.2 billion. Although it was unable to meet its original deadline of March 2020, the project is still on track to be completed in the ensuing year. It has encountered multiple snags over the deadline and the most prominent issue that is cropping up is the lack of bidders for maintenance. This is partly due to keeping Chinese vendors out of the tender ambit.