- Introduction
- Schemes covered
- Implementation
- Strategy
- Rating of village
- Implementation Team
- Campaign
- Training and monitoring
Introduction
- The Department of Posts has launched a scheme called Five Star Villages, to ensure universal coverage of flagship postal schemes in rural areas of the country.
- The scheme seeks to bridge the gaps in public awareness and reach of postal products and services, especially in interior villages.
- All postal products and services will be made available and marketed and publicized at village level, under the Five Star Villages scheme.
- Branch offices will function as one-stop shop to cater all post office – related needs of villagers.
The schemes covered under the Five Star scheme include:
- Savings Bank accounts, Recurrent Deposit Accounts, NSC / KVP certificates,
- Sukanya Samridhi Accounts/ PPF Accounts,
- Funded Post Office Savings Account linked India Post Payments Bank Accounts,
- Postal Life Insurance Policy/Rural Postal Life Insurance Policy and
- Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana Account / Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana Account.
Implementation
- The scheme is being launched on pilot basis in Maharashtra; based on the experience here, it will be implemented nation-wide.
- The entire state of Maharashtra will be covered under the scheme.
- To begin with, two rural districts/areas for each region have been identified: Akola and Washim in Nagpur Region; Parbhani and Hingoli in Aurangabad Region; Solapur and Pandharpur in Pune Region; Kolhapur and Sangli in Goa Region; and Malegaon and Palghar in Navi Mumbai Region.
- A total of 50 villages in each district will be covered during the current financial year 2020-2021. Regional offices will identify the villages to be covered.
Strategy
Rating of villages:
If a village attains universal coverage for four schemes from the above list, then that village gets four-star status; if a village completes three schemes, then that village get three-star status and so on.
Scheme Implementation Team
- The scheme will be implemented by a team of five Gramin Dak Sevaks who will be assigned a village for marketing of all products, savings and insurance schemes of the Department of Posts.
- This team will be headed by the Branch Post Master of the concerned Branch Office.
- Mail overseer will keep personal watch on progress of team on daily basis.
- The teams will be led and monitored by concerned Divisional Head, Assistant Superintendents Posts and Inspector Posts.
Campaign
- The team of Gramin Dak Sevaks will conduct door-to-door awareness campaign on all schemes, covering all eligible villagers.
- Wide publicity will be given by displaying the information on notice board of Branch Office.
- Prominent places of targeted villages like Panchayat Offices, schools, village dispensaries, bus depots, markets will also be used for advertising and pamphlets will be distributed.
- Small melas will be organized, considering COVID-19 safety guidelines.
Training and Monitoring
- Required training and infrastructure, covering all schemes, would be provided to all branch offices in identified villages.
- The scheme progress and target achievement will be closely monitored at Circle, Regional and Divisional levels. Monthly progress will be reviewed by the Chief Post Master General.
- Introduction
- Components
- Key features
- Implementation
- Significance
- Manner of working
- Origins of scheme
- Objectives
- Digital divide
- Concern
- Challenges
- Recommendations
Introduction
- PM WANI (Wi-Fi Access Network Interface) is a scheme meant to increase Wi-fi access throughout the country.
- The move is aimed at helping accelerate the uptake of broadband Internet services.
- It was first recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in 2017.
The WANI framework contains the following components:
- Public Data Office (PDO):
It will establish, maintain, and operate only WANI compliant Wi-Fi Access Points and deliver broadband services to subscribers.
- Public Data Office Aggregator (PDOA):
It will be an aggregator of PDOs and perform the functions relating to Authorization and Accounting.
- App Provider:
It will develop an App to register users and discover WANI compliant Wi-Fi hotspots in the nearby area and display the same within the App for accessing the internet service.
- Central Registry:
It will maintain the details of App Providers, PDOAs, and PDOs. To begin with, the Central Registry will be maintained by C-DoT.
Key features of the project:
- This will allow setting up of public WiFi hotspots across the country via public data offices or public data offices (PDOs).
- It will not require the PDOs to get a license or pay a fee.
- This will involve multiple players, including PDOs, Public Data Office Aggregators (PDOA), app providers, and a central registry.
Implementation:
- PDOs will be “facilitators” between service providers and users.
- A PDOA will be an aggregator of PDOs that will oversee functions relating to authorization and accounting of Wi-Fi connections.
- A person, who wants to use public Wi-Fi, can do so via an app and will make payments as per usage.
- The project will also have an app developer who will build a platform to register users and discover Wani-compliant Wi-Fi hotspots in an area and display them on the app.
- A central registry, which will be maintained by the Centre for Development of Telematics, will record the details of app providers, PDOAs and PDOs.
Significance of the project:
- Public Wi-Fi networks will ‘democratize’ content distribution and broadband access to millions at affordable rates.
This will be the UPI (unified payments interface) of connectivity services.
The scheme shall work in the following manner:
- Any entity desirous of becoming a PDO sets up a Wi-Fi access point by purchasing network services from a service provider.
- The PDO registers with a PDOA that is registered on the App.
- Now, any potential user in the vicinity of a Wi-Fi access point, after registering and authenticating themself on the App, selects a PDO to connect to.
- This request is sent to the relevant PDOA who, after, authenticating the user, will display tariff plans to the user.
- Once the payment has been made to the PDOA, the PDOA registers the user and provides them with the requisite Wi-Fi access.
What are its legislative and policy origins?
DoT’s National Digital Communications Policy, 2018
- Mentions the development of of public Wi-Fi hotspots in rural and urban areas as a goal Mentions further liberalizing the spectrum sharing, leasing and trading regime
TRAI’s Consultation Paper on Proliferation of Broadband through Public Wi-Fi Networks
- Lays down the core principles of an ‘unbundled and distributed model’ for public Wi-FI hotspots. Details the app-based hub framework that WANI has adopted
What are the proposed objectives of the PM WANI scheme?
- It is contemplated that the proliferation of public Wi-Fi networks throughout the country will greatly increase internet access at cheap prices.
- Increased Wi-Fi access will bring with an improved quality of life, especially in an increasingly digital economy.
- The deregulated operating requirement is meant to help improve the ease of doing business, and thus potentially provide both employment opportunities and increased disposable income.
- Furthermore, the decentralised nature of the WANI ecosystem is meant to address last mile connectivity and allow access points to grow organically in places that need them the most.
Internet Access & the Digital Divide
- As of June 2020, the number of internet subscribers increased to 749.07 million, a 0.79% increase over the previous quarter, and a 4.2% increase over December 2019.
- The number of urban and rural subscribers increased to 455.98 million and 293.09 million respectively.
- While internet penetration in the country is rising, a persistent digital divide still remains due to factors such as gender gaps and the rural-urban divide.
- The number of rural subscribers, despite making up a significant majority of the population, is only 64% of the number of urban subscribers, with rural internet density only about a third of urban internet density.
- Meanwhile, NFHS data suggests that in eight states and two union territories less than 40 percent women have used the internet.
Concerns about the security of data and the role of the state
- Open public Wi-Fis have been known to be vulnerable to hacks and breaches.
- The security architecture used may often not possess sufficient security standards, and so may leak data.
- Furthermore, many websites, including government portals, may not always have security credentials such as HTTPS or SSL certificates, and so accessing such websites through public Wi-Fis may be even more dangerous.
- The possibility of rogue networks acting as PDOs also exists, where hackers may spoof a legitimate network for malicious purposes.
- Furthemore, in the absence of a robust data protection legislation, both usage data and any personal or sensitive information entered for the purpose of authentication may also be at risk.
- The deregulated environment, while perhaps good for business, only exacerbates the issues.
- The guidelines for the scheme only discuss this in a cursory manner, stating that PDOAs shall “take all necessary steps to safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of any information about a third party to whom it provides the service” (Para 4(c)).
- Thus, there is a clear need for comprehensive security guidelines to be included in the framework.
- Another peculiarity of the scheme can be found in Para 4(c) of the guidelines, which states that “PDOA shall make necessary provisions for storage of user data for one year to ensure compliance with legal provisions, as required”.
- This may clash with the RIght to be Forgotten which, while not recognised as an absolute right, is still a key part of India’s privacy framework.
- Indeed, the latest draft of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 that was introduced in Parliament enshrined the Right to be Forgotten as fundamental.
- Lastly, while PM WANI is a major step towards addressing the issues of internet connectivity, the reliance on the private sector and the withdrawal of the state must be analysed.
- India still has a persistent ‘Digital Divide’, which has only worsened after the onset of the pandemic.
- Thus, it is crucial that not only is high speed internet connectivity provided, but also that it is done so at low rates, which may not always be possible with the private sector.
- Now, as of May 2019, the Universal Service Obligation Fund had Rs. 50,554 crore available for appropriation and usage.
- Given the very aim of the Fund was the provision of telecom services in rural and remote areas, it is imperative that the Centre urgently use such Funds towards telecom infrastructure (in this context, the increased budgetary allocations to the Fund are to be commended).
- This would enable the provision of internet connectivity to those areas that need it the most, while also overcoming the hurdle of high capital costs.
Implementation challenges
- The economic viability of such projects in the indian contexts must be questioned. The availability of cheap data means that the demand for public data may be limited, especially in urban areas.
- Similar projects have been implemented before by diverse entities from tech giants like Google and Facebook to small scale players such as WiFi Dabba without much success, with the main issue being cheap and widely available 4G data.
- Google even noted that “several governments and local entities have kicked off their own initiatives to provide easier, cost-effective access to the Internet for everyone”.
- This further underlines the benefit of governmental initiatives in the sector. Furthermore, the ‘aggregator’ model that has been adopted has been heavily critiqued for its exploitation of workers.
- This may end up prohibiting the increasing of incomes, the achievement of which has been stated as a goal of the scheme.
- Public sector projects would be able to ameliorate such concerns as well.
Recommendations
In light of the above, here a few steps that may address such issues:
- Stringent security measures:
- Robust information security protocols must be specified to ensure secure connections.
- This is especially important in the context of the scale at which the implementation of the scheme is envisioned.
- Furthermore, stringent data protection measures must be mandated to protect against data leakage and the illicit usage of sensitive information by PDOAs or hackers.
- Increased governmental efforts:
- The Universal Service Obligation Fund must be the primary medium of broadband deployment, especially in marginalised areas.
- At the very least, a high level technical committee must oversee a country wide survey, that must be conducted with the aim of partitioning districts into those that would be served by the Fund and those in which the PM WANI scheme could be harnessed.
- Introduction
- About scheme
- Objectives
- Rural postal life insurance
- Postal life insurance
- Extension
Introduction
- In a bid to provide affordable life insurance services to people, particularly those living in rural areas of the country, the government has launched Sampoorna Bima Gram (SBG) Yojana and expanded the coverage of Postal Life Insurance (PLI).
- With this, apart from government employees, PLI will now cover professionals also.
- The decision has been taken to enlarge the cover of social security and bring the maximum number of people under the protection of Postal Life Insurance (PLI).
About the Sampoorna Bima Gram (SBG) Yojana:
- Under the Sampoorna Bima Gram (SBG) Yojana, at least one village (having a minimum of 100 households) will be identified in each of the revenue districts of the country, wherein endeavour will be made to cover all households of that identified village with a minimum of one RPLI (Rural Postal Life Insurance) policy each.
Objectives
- Coverage of all households in the identified Sampoorna Bima Gram village is the primary objective of this scheme.
Rural postal Life Insurance
- Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI), introduced on March 24, 1995 on the recommendations of the Malhotra Committee, provides insurance cover to people residing in rural areas, especially weaker sections and women living in rural areas.
Postal Life Insurance
- Postal Life Insurance (PLI) was introduced on 1st February 1884.
- In the beginning, the upper limit of life insurance was only Rs 4000, which has now increased to Rs 50 lakh.
- It covers employees of Central and state governments, Central and state public sector undertakings, universities, government-aided educational institutions, nationalized banks, local bodies, autonomous bodies, joint ventures having a minimum of 10% Govt./PSU stake, credit co-operative societies etc.
Extension
- PLI also extends the facility of insurance to the officers and staff of the Defence services and para-military forces.
- Apart from single insurance policies, Postal Life Insurance also manages a group insurance scheme for the extra departmental employees (Gramin Dak Sevaks) of the Department of Posts.
- In a bid to provide affordable life insurance services to people, particularly those living in rural areas of the country, the government has launched Sampoorna Bima Gram (SBG) Yojana and expanded the coverage of Postal Life Insurance (PLI).
- With this, apart from government employees, PLI will now cover professionals also. The decision has been taken to enlarge the cover of social security and bring the maximum number of people under the protection of Postal Life Insurance (PLI).
- Introduction
- About the scheme
- Selection
Introduction
The government has launched a Pan India scholarship program for school children called Deen Dayal SPARSH Yojana to increase the reach of Philately.
About the scheme:
Under the scheme of SPARSH (Scholarship for Promotion of Aptitude & Research in Stamps as a Hobby), it is proposed to award annual scholarships to children of Standard VI to IX having good academic record and also pursuing Philately as a hobby through a competitive selection process in all postal circles.
Selection:
- To avail this scholarship, a child must be a student of a recognized school within India and the concerned school should have a Philately Club and the candidate should be a member of the Club.
- In case the school Philately Club hasn’t been established a student having his own Philately Deposit Account will also be considered.
- Every prospective school, which participates in the competition, would be assigned a Philately mentor to be chosen from amongst the renowned Philatelists.
- The Philately mentor would help in formation of the School level Philately Club, providing guidance to young and aspiring Philatelists on how to pursue the hobby and also helping the aspiring Philatelists on their Philately Projects etc.
- Selections under the scheme would be made based on the evaluation of Project work on Philately & performance in Philately Quiz conducted by the Circles.
