This July, be prepared for an extravagant Digital India launch

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government is preparing to launch its ‘Digital India’ initiative on a large scale, which will also include selling merchandise, hackathons and games.

Launch of Digital India, an initiative to take technology to the villages and block-levels, will be spread over a week across the country.

No dates have been fixed so far but the Digital India Week (DIW) is likely to kick-start in July. It will involve stakeholders across state governments and ministries. This is likely to be one of the flagship programmes of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Economic Times reported that the National e-Governance Division (NeGD), under the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), has roped in agencies for a messaging campaign, gamification, printing and merchandise, advertising and creatives, including advertising for rural outreach and social media.

The NeGD will work directly with Prime Minister's Office and it is tasked with preparing the launch since February.

"They really want to make this the biggest programme of the second year. The idea is that many things have been done in the digital space that need to get highlighted," an individual with knowledge of the plans told ET.

The event is going to be on a large scale as the government has asked for merchandise such as t-shirts, caps, trophies, pen drives and plastic bags. ET learnt that a gamification agency will work on the portals, mobile applications and social media handles to boost participation.

The messaging agency’s task will be to carry out, track, record and analyse 50 lakh to one crore messages per day.

The event will be launched by Modi through his monthly radio address, "Mann ki Baat".

"It is a typical BJP-style campaign. The Prime Minister does not want to hold the final day event in Delhi and the location is being finalised. All state and line ministries have been involved, and are being asked to showcase e-services and best practices, along with the launch of some programmes like digital locker," another person familiar with the plans being rolled out for the DIW told ET.

The campaign will be known as "inform, educate and engage", which will include taking the message of Digital India to the masses through educational institutions, industry and government agencies.

"It will educate people on various important services such as digital literacy, cyber hygiene and e-waste management, and also look at engaging a large number of people, especially youth on a continuous basis," a person familiar with the ongoing preparation told the financial daily.

Experts on e-governance termed the campaign as a good move since most of the e-governance projects, across the world, fail because there's not enough buy-in from stakeholders or the goals aren't communicated widely to the public.

"E-governance needs evangelising. That is what this campaign looks like it will do. Some parts are dated - such as posters and the print elements. But this is a good idea. Whether it works or not depends on the participation they see at the end," Sunil Abraham, director at the Centre for Internet and Society, told ET.

(Image: Reuters)