Following the draft privacy law, the government is now ready to present another important piece of legislation – Digital India Bill – which will be put up for public consultation by the end of the month, IT Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday.
That Digital India Lawwhich will replace the 22-year-old Information Technology Law (IT Law), will be a contemporary and modern law, the minister promised.
The proposed law will add to the evolving framework that will make regulation easy, protect consumer rights and catalyze innovation, alongside the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) bill, the draft of which was recently published, the minister said in a speech at the CII Global Economic Policy Summit 2022.
Chandrasekhar further shared that a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program for “wearables” is in the pipeline. He called wearables one of the fastest growing segments in electronics.
On the proposed Digital India Act, he said it would address issues such as non-personal data ownership and even data portability.
“The Digital India Act will be available for consultation by the end of this month,” Chandrasekhar said.
The IT law is a 22-year-old law that “even existed before the internet,” he informed.
“It’s legislation that doesn’t even mention the internet, and it’s legislation that regulates the internet. So we’re going to slowly and systematically create a framework of laws where protection of digital personal data is an element of it,” said he.
Two months ago, the government launched the National Data Governance Framework Policy, which addresses the issue of the government’s data ecosystem.
“And we’re about to introduce the successor to the IT Act, a much more contemporary, much more global standard, a modern law called the Digital India Act. These three will form a framework that makes regulation easy and manages the binaries of protection for consumer rights, but also as a catalyst for innovation,” he said.
India is taking bold steps and expanding its manufacturing power globally, the minister said. As the world looks towards a diversified supply chain, India is positioning itself as a major player in the evolving global value chain construct.
India aims to reach US$300 billion (approx. Rs.24.654 trillion) in electronics manufacturing with US$120 billion (approx. Rs.9.862 trillion) in exports by 2025-26. From current levels, this would mean 8x growth over the next 4-5 years in exports alone and 4x growth in the context of total sales and production share in global value chains.
“The road to India’s techade is paved with solid opportunities,” the minister said, adding “the runway to a trillion-dollar digital economy is well lit.”
He spoke of the National Data Governance Framework Policy, which addresses the ability to use citizen data provided it is anonymous and devoid of personal identifiers.
“We will soon launch the world’s largest publicly available datasets platform called India Data Sets Platform, which will be used by both government and researchers,” he said.
