Access to high speed broadband should be available without any restrictions:Jayant Sinha

NEW DELHI: India's Junior Minister Finance Minister Jayant Sinha, reiterated the government’s firm commitment of transformation of India.

“There are 3 vectors for the transformation – Internet & Mobile; Green Technology and Transportation. All of them are inter-linked and technology is the secret sauce for India’s transformation," said Sinha while delivering the valedictory address at the 10th India Digital Summit of IAMAI,

During his address, Sinha said that because of the Jan Dhan programme, every Indian can have a bank account.

He went on to say, “If you look at it, it is technology which is driving most of the programmes of the government. The Social Security Platform, which the government is working on is dependent on technology. Technology will be pivotal for Social Security, as it will enable a transparent system with digital audit trail.”

Sinha stressed that “protecting and safeguarding privacy of the data” was paramount and the government will ensure it is protected.

He highlighted once the architecture of the Social Security Platform is ready, the government will be reaching to various stakeholders for inputs.

Touching on start-ups, Sinha said, “India is going to be the entrepreneur engine catering to 6 billion people of the world.”

Comment on net neutrality, Sinha said, “Access to high speed broadband should be available to every citizen, without any restrictions.”

Earlier during the day, addressing the India Digital Summit, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, M.P. – Rajya Sabha, said, “Net neutrality as an issue was there for a while. What the regulator has done is great but differential pricing has not been defined properly.”

Speaking at a session Saurabh Garg, Jt. Secretary, Ministry of Finance, “More than 95% consumer transactions is cash form. Non-cash payments still to penetrate rural areas. There are various benefits of cashless transactions as the printing cost will also go down which is a win-win situation for both. Infrastructure of being able to use cards. Point of Sale machine needs to be get on place. There are many issues related to Security like theft which we will have to look into going forward.“

Earlier in the day, a report titled “Tapping the MSME Potential” by IAMAI – IMRB, which talks about building online presence amongst MSME businesses in India. According to the Report 61% of the India MSMEs believe that it is important to have an online identity for their business.