Government saved Rs 36k crore in one year by plugging leakages via JAM

NEW DELHI: Jan Dhan-Aadhar-Mobile trinity, commonly known as JAM, helped the Government save leakages worth Rs 36,000 crore in subsidies and benefits provided to the poor, during the last one year, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said.

"We linked their (Jan Dhan) account with their Aadhar, to their mobile and to the bank. By giving them all the pro-poor subsidies and benefits we have saved Rs 36,000 crore in the last one year because of application of digital technologies," Prasad said addressing the inauguration of India International Trade Fair in the national capital.

Observing that the government wishes "to bridge the digital divide," Prasad, Minister for Information and Technology (IT) said, India is "very soon" going to have 50 crore Internet landline and wireless connections.

"To awaken the latent potential of Indians, we are going with a mass digital literacy programme of making 6 crore Indians digitally literate," the Minister said.

He pointed out that in a population of 125 crore, India today has over 103 crore mobile phones (users) and 107 crore Aadhar cards for verifiable digital identity.

Prasad, who also holds the charge of Law Minister, said the government is "not ignorant" of the need for cyber security initiatives to be strengthened further.

We are also encouraging electronic manufacturing in a very big way, he said.

"When our government had came, we had only Rs 11,000 crore of investment. Now it has crossed Rs 1,26,000 crore. In the last one year 40 new mobile manufacturing units have come in India and 10 new units making spare parts. We want to make India a big hub of electronics manufacturing," Prasad said.

He further said, the government plans to connect 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats of India through optical fibre network.