"Making 'Digital India' is like changing all four tyres of a moving car that is fast running out of fuel."

Said : Aashish Chandorkar, a Management Consultant based in Pune and working in Mumbai, in his article published in the Swarajya Magazine.

According to Chandorkar, the undue delay to start the work on laying the fiber-optic cables by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), a special purpose vehicle created by UPA-2 in the year 2011, has led to the current situation which the job very difficult for the present government. The UPA II had the target to cover 2,50,000 villages, spread across 631 districts, with broadband connectivity by 2013 under its National Optic Fiber Network (NOFN) initiative.

Quoting official data, Chandorkar writes "BBNL website demonstrates the sloppy pace of work between 2011 and 2015 with just over 1% of the connectivity targets achieved thus far after a time overrun of 2 years."

"Under Digital India, the government has now set the target of laying the fiber-optic cables for BharatNet – the new avatar of NOFN which involves improved technology, multiple access modes other than fiber and improved quality of fiber – by March 2017. The work involves laying almost 600,000 kms of cables in just about 21 months or an average of 950 kms of cables every day starting immediately. This is what has been achieved in the past four years in total!" 

'Digital India' is yet another dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The program was launched recently at an event attended by government officials as well as industry leaders. The programme aims to make all citizens digitally literate and bring internet and e-governance to all sections of the society. 

Here is a tweet in praise for Aashish Chandorkar's article. 

Great piece by @c_aashish on weak foundation (tks to UPA legacy) on which Govt has premised its #digitalindia plans http://t.co/UnOsIe0pIM

— Prasanna Viswanathan (@prasannavishy) August 3, 2015

My response to the above tweet : 

I wish the article was written without involving any politics in it so as to provide the correct picture of the mission and it's challenges. By holding responsible and blaming the (dead) UPA II for the delay in implementing what was targeted under (NOFN) initiative, thereby not getting the digital foundation right for the current government is of no use at all.

Comparing implementation of the Digital India programme with changing all four tyres of a moving car is highly absurd. The punchline ("changing all four tyres of a moving car....") mocks the importance of sincerity and, in its own way, the author's own statement.

BTW, here is a video showing you how a person can change tyres on a moving car! 

Good Luck to you and PM Modi for the work ahead.