“Digital India has taken facilities earlier available in big cities to remote villages, boosting the number of digital entrepreneurs,” he said.
Highlighting increasing digital connectivity in remote parts of the country, Modi spoke about Jorsing village in Arunachal Pradesh, which got 4G internet services on Independence Day. He said, “There has been a new sunrise in the form of 4G in the remote areas of Arunachal and the North East. Internet connectivity has brought a new dawn. Facilities once available only in big cities have been brought to every village through Digital India. For this reason, new digital entrepreneurs are rising in the country.”
Modi cited examples of companies in different parts of the country using the internet to boost their business.
This is not the first time the prime minister praised the pace of India’s digital transformation. In his Independence Day speech,
he had emphasised that this was India’s “techade”.
“India’s techade is here. With 5G, semiconductor manufacturing and optic fibre cable in villages, we are bringing a revolution through Digital India to the grassroots level,” Modi said. He also rooted for ‘Made in India’ technology solutions.
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Acknowledging the startup revolution the country has seen in the past few years, Modi said, “Today, we are seeing the Digital India initiative, startups growing in the country, and a lot of talent coming from tier II and tier III cities. We have to believe in our abilities.”
On January 16, which India celebrates as National Startup Day, Modi, at a virtual gathering of over 150 entrepreneurs, said
startups were the “backbone” of the new India and the engine that would power the nation’s economic growth in the run-up to the 100 years of Independence.
“The first [task] is to liberate entrepreneurship and innovation from the web of government processes, bureaucratic silos. The second is creating an institutional mechanism to promote innovation. Third is handholding young innovators and young enterprises,” Modi said at the event, a part of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
Government think tank Niti Aayog said last year that India has improved its ranking by two places to 46 on the Global Innovation Index 2021 on the back of a vibrant startup ecosystem and research by public and private organisations.
