India will become a vast centre for data analysis in future, benefitting the agriculture and education sectors besides governance, Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad said here on Sunday.
Mr. Prasad was speaking at the concluding ceremony of the two-day Goa IT Day celebrations. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and Goa Minister for Information and Technology Rohan Khaunte were present.
Mr. Prasad said fingerprints and iris records stored in the Aadhar data vault cannot be hacked even if one tried a billion times.
Calling it a “completely safe and secure” data storage system, he said Aadhaar conducted nearly one crore authentications every second. “You know how many authentications we do every three seconds, three crore. Do you know how many bank accounts are linked to Aadhaar...80 crore. And Aadhaar is your home-grown technology at one dollar each and completely safe and secure with proper parliamentary approval,” he said.
“The law is so tough that even if I disclose a fingerprint and iris to an unknown person, except in case of national security, I can be prosecuted,” the Minister said and lauded the Modi-led NDA government for taking rapid steps to make India go more digital.
“What is the digital profile of India? In a population of 130 crore, India is home to 121 crore mobile phones, 450 million smart phones, 50 crore plus Internet (connections) and 122 crore Aadhaar cards,” Mr. Prasad said.
Calling Digital India a transformative programme designed to vest ordinary Indians with the power of technology, Mr. Prasad said India looked to be a leader in the digital revolution.
“We missed the Industrial revolution, we missed the Entrepreneurial revolution which happened in the world in the 60s, 70s, 80s because of licence-quota raj. We do not want to miss the digital revolution. We want to become the leaders in that, that is the philosophy of digital India,” he said.
He said one of the key objectives of digital India is to bridge the gulf between the ‘digital haves’ and the ‘digital have-nots’ and usher in digital inclusion based upon technology which is developmental, inclusive and low-cost.
“That is the transformative nature of digital India, Skill India, Start-up India, and smart cities. It is all technology-based programming designed to empower ordinary Indians to reform, perform and transform,” Mr. Prasad said, adding, “India has the potential to lead the digital revolution and become the vast digital market in the world.”
Earlier, the Goa government signed two MoUs with IT companies and inaugurated the STPI office.
Mr. Prasad described the Goa IT policy as extraordinary and well-planned and called for the need for digital skilling for which he promised Central support. He announced that Goa would soon have a National Institute of Electronics and Information & Technology Centre.
Mr. Khaunte said the State’s IT policy aims at making Goa an IT destination and to generate employment avenues. The policy, he said, focuses on infrastructure development, fiscal incentives, governance and human resource development.
“There is a special provision for capital investment subsidy for the Goan diaspora,” the Minister said
