Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet digital locker concept, which aims to provide a secure platform for personal documents of citizens on a common cloud, will be implemented from the next fiscal.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), government think tank Niti Aayog and the finance ministry are busy giving finishing touches to the infrastructure for the system.
Sources said the PMO sought comments from the revenue department of the finance ministry on the steps being taken by it on implementing the digital locker scheme. It was envisaged by Mr Modi under the Digital India initiative of the National Democratic Alliance government. The PMO is learnt to be keen to implement the scheme in fiscal 2017-18.
The decision makers at South Block had suggested that all central ministries and organisations which issue any document to a citizen, must also encourage them to put these documents in a digital locker.
Subsequently, the finance ministry is learnt to have conveyed to the PMO that the proposal is likely to be implemented by March 2017 — right at the time of the beginning of the next financial year.
Sources said the IT infrastructure for the project is being streamlined. Discussions between the Niti Aayog (which is moderating the proposal), the finance ministry and the PMO are at an advanced stage on wrapping up the infrastructure for the system so that it can be implemented by the next fiscal.
The PMO under its ‘MyGov’ forum had also started a discussion on the subject, under which it received a wide range of suggstions from the public. Tuesday (October 25) was the last date for submitting ideas on the issue.
Digital locker aims to provide citizens with a shareable private space on a public cloud and make all documents and certificates available. Suggestions from the public ranging from expressing optimism to exercising caution in the light of the debit card scam, have been received by the PMO.
While there was a suggestion that it should be linked with Aadhar and PAN cards, there was a word of caution on ensuring foolproof security.
