Applications of IT

Information Technology (IT) revolutionizes industries by enabling efficient data management, communication, and automation. Its applications span diverse fields, including education, healthcare, business, governance, and entertainment. IT supports innovation in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and cybersecurity, driving productivity and transforming how individuals and organizations interact in a connected, digital world.

What is Information Technology?

• Information Technology (IT) refers to the use of computers, networks, software, and other digital systems to process, store, retrieve, and exchange information.
• It plays a crucial role in modern society, powering innovations across industries and enabling efficient communication, data management, and decision-making.
• IT encompasses a wide range of technologies, including hardware like servers and computers, software applications, and emerging fields like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.
• IT drives advancements in areas such as education, healthcare, finance, e-commerce, and governance by streamlining operations and enhancing productivity.
• It also supports connectivity through the internet and mobile technologies, fostering a global exchange of information. As technology evolves, IT continues to shape the future, transforming how we work, live, and interact.

Applications of IT in Different Sector

Cyber and Telecommunication Sector

Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems

• As crime continues to grow, and criminals turn tech-savvy, police investigators across States face a tough challenge to bring the law-breakers to justice. The situation is, however, undergoing a revolutionary change. The Digital Police Portal launched by the Government of India as part of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), is not only helping police to track the criminals fast, but is also helping the victims to redressed online.
• The Project seeks to make use of technology in bringing greater transparency and accountability into government functioning.

Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT)

• It is the Telecom Technology development centre of the Government of India. It was established in August 1984 as an autonomous body.
• It was vested with full authority and total flexibility to develop state-of-the-art telecommunication technology to meet the needs of the Indian telecommunication network. The key objective was to build a centre for excellence in the area of telecom technology.
• In the initial years, C-DOT triggered a telecom revolution in the rural India that was responsible for all-round socio-economic development. Rural India gained access to a whole new world of opportunities as they got connected globally.
• As part of its development process, C-DOT has spawned a wide base of equipment manufacturers and component vendors for the industry. The state-of-the-art R&D facilities at its Delhi and Bangalore campuses are comparable with the best in the world.

Governance

JAM Trinity

• It is an abbreviation for Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and Mobile number. The government is pinning its hopes on these three modes of identification to deliver direct benefits to India’s poor.
• To solve the issues like of bogus beneficiaries and improper transfers JAM can be a revolutionary concept and Idea. JAM can help in minimizing leakages in the transfer of delivery of monetary benefits or in providing services to the poor. Also it will cause the elimination of bogus beneficiaries as everyone will be linked to Aadhar which will result in easy identification of fake beneficiaries.
• JAM will also help in increasing the Financial Inclusion of the people living in Rural Areas as getting credit facilities would be easy and less cumbersome.
• JAM can help in creating an atmosphere for enabling Direct Benefits Transfer and will also help in direct delivery of various government schemes like Subsidies for LPG Cylinders, Subsidy for fertilizers among other uses.

CPGRAMS

• Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) is an online platform available to the citizens 24×7 to lodge their grievances to the public authorities on any subject related to service delivery. It is a single portal connected to all the Ministries/Departments of Government of India and States. In this portal,every Ministry and state have role-based access.
• CPGRAMS is also accessible to the citizens through a standalone mobile application downloadable through the Google Play store and mobile application integrated with UMANG. The grievances received by the Department are forwarded to the concerned Ministries or Government Departments, who are dealing with the fundamental functions linked with the grievance for redress under intimation to the complainant.

Digital Locker

• Targeted at the idea of paperless governance, DigiLocker is a platform for issuance and verification of documents & certificates in a digital way, thus eliminating the use of physical documents. Indian citizens who sign up for a DigiLocker account get a dedicated cloud storage space that is linked to their Aadhaar (UIDAI) number.
• Organizations that are registered with Digital Locker can push electronic copies of documents and certificates (e.g. driving license, Voter ID, School certificates) directly into citizens lockers. Citizens can also upload scanned copies of their legacy documents in their accounts. These legacy documents can be electronically signed using the eSign facility.
• Currently, in India, many of the documents issued by government or non-government entities are in physical form. This means every time an individual needs to share the document with an agency to avail any service, an attested photo copy either in physical form or on scanned form is shared.
• Use of physical copies of document creates huge overhead in terms of manual verification, paper storage, manual audits, etc., incurring high cost and inconvenience.
• This creates problem for various agencies to verify the authenticity of these documents, thus, creating loopholes for usage of fake documents/certificates. In addition, lack of strong identity of the owner that is attached to these documents, it is easy to misuse someone else’s document.

PRAGATI

• PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance And Timely Implementation) is an ambitious multi-purpose and multi-modal platform. PRAGATI is a unique integrating and interactive platform.
• The platform is aimed at addressing common man’s grievances, and simultaneously monitoring and reviewing important programmes and projects of the Government of India as well as projects flagged by State Governments.
• The PRAGATI platform uniquely bundles three latest technologies: Digital data management, video-conferencing and geospatial technology. It also offers a unique combination in the direction of cooperative federalism since it brings on one stage the Secretaries of Government of India and the Chief Secretaries of the States.
• With this, the Prime Minister is able to discuss the issues with the concerned Central and State officials with full information and latest visuals of the ground level situation.
• The system has been designed in-house by the PMO team with the help of National Informatics Center (NIC). As the name suggests, it is aimed at starting a culture of Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation. It is also a robust system for bringing e-transparency and e-accountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders.

Financial Literacy

DIGISHALA

• DigiShala, a free Doordarshan DTH channel is launched to educate and inform people about the various modes of digital payments. The channel will help people understand the use of a unified payments interface (UPI), USSD, aadhar-enabled payments system, electronic wallets, debit, and credit cards.
• A website was also launched which will serve as a repository of knowledge regarding digital payments.
• Both the channel and website were launched as a part of the ‘Digi Dhan Abhiyan’, a campaign conceptualized by the IT ministry to enable every citizen, small trader and merchant to adopt digital payments in their everyday financial transactions.

Health Sector

National Digital Health Mission

In order to realize the vision for universal health coverage, the Government of India launched the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) in 2020.

• The NDHM is a complete digital health ecosystem. The digital platform will be launched with four key features — health ID, personal health records, Digi Doctor, and health facility registry.
• The NDHM is implemented by the National Health Authority (NHA) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• NDHM is a manifestation of one of the guidelines of the National Health Policy 2017 that had envisaged the creation of a digital health technology eco-system aiming at developing an integrated health information system.
• It is a landmark move that is based on the principles of the India health stack and aims to connect the different touch-points of the health ecosystem, such as Health Information Provider to Health Information User to Consent Manager, through digital tools to provide affordable access to quality healthcare.
• The NDHM also aims to ensure that preventive and assistive healthcare come under the same broader umbrella.

NATIONAL HEALTH STACK (NHS) NHS is digital infrastructure built with the aim of making the health insurance system more transparent and robust, while factoring in the uniqueness of India’s health sector, and the political realities of federalism. There are five components of NHS: 1. An electronic national health registry that would serve as a single source of health data for the nation. 2. A coverage and claims platform that would serve as the building blocks for large health protection schemes, allow for the horizontal and vertical expansion of schemes like Ayushman Bharat by states, and enable a robust system of fraud detection. 3. A federated personal health records (PHR) framework that would serve the twin purposes of access to their own health data by patients, and the availability of health data for medical research, which is critical for advancing the understanding of human health; 4. A national health analytics platform that would provide a holistic view combining information on multiple health initiatives, and feed into smart policymaking, for instance, through improved predictive analytics; and 5. Other horizontal components including a unique digital health ID, health data dictionaries and supply chain management for drugs, payment gateways, etc., shared across all health programmes.

Telemedicine

• Telemedicine is the delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care professionals using Information Technology (IT) for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, etc, in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities.
• Also, Tele-consultation is one of the applications of telemedicine. It uses IT to facilitate communications between a patient and a doctor who are otherwise geographically separated.

E-SANJEEVANI It is a doctor to doctor telemedicine system, being implemented under the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWCs) programme.

Labour Reforms

Universal Account Number of EPF

• A Universal Account Number (UAN) will be generated for each of the PF contributing members by EPFO.
• The UAN will act as an umbrella for the multiple Member Ids allotted to an individual by different establishments.
• The idea is to link multiple Member Identification Numbers (Member Id) allotted to a single member under a single Universal Account Number.
• This will help the member to view details of all the Member Identification Numbers (Member Id) linked to it.

Education Sector

SWAYAM

• SWAYAM is a programme initiated by the Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality.
• The objective of this effort is to take the best teaching learning resources to all, including the most disadvantaged.
• SWAYAM seeks to bridge the digital divide for students who have hitherto remained untouched by the digital revolution and have not been able to join the mainstream of the knowledge economy.
• SWAYAM platform is indigenously developed by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) with the help of Microsoft and would be ultimately capable of hosting 2000 courses and 80000 hours of learning: covering school, under-graduate, post-graduate, engineering, law and other professional courses.

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan

• The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has launched a programme called Unnat Bharat Abhiyan in December 2014 with an aim to connect institutions of higher education, including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs) etc. with local communities to address the development challenges through appropriate technologies.
• Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is inspired by the vision of transformational change in rural development processes by leveraging knowledge institutions to help build the architecture of an Inclusive India.

E-Pathshala

• E-Pathshala has been developed by NCERT disseminating all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals and a variety of other print and non-print materials through website and mobile app.
• The platform addresses the challenges such as reaching out to a diverse clientele and bridging the digital divide (geographical, socio-cultural and linguistic), offering comparable quality of e-contents and ensuring its free access at every time and every place.
• All the concerned stakeholders such as students, teachers, educators and parents can access e-books through multiple technology platforms i.e. mobile phones (android, ios and windows platforms), and tablets (as e-pub) and on web through laptops and desktops (as flipbooks).
• All the NCERT books have been digitised and uploaded. Currently the e-contents are available in Hindi, English and Urdu. States/ UTs are being approached to digitise and share all textbooks in other Indian languages through this platform.
• The Web portal and Mobile App of e-Pathshala was launched by Hon’ble HRM during the National Conference on ICT in School Education on 7th November, 2015.

Way Forward

• The way forward for IT applications lies in advancing artificial intelligence, blockchain, and quantum computing to enhance automation, security, and efficiency.
• Strengthening digital infrastructure, fostering innovation, and ensuring ethical AI deployment will empower industries like healthcare, education, and governance, driving inclusive growth and a sustainable digital future.

Conclusion

The applications of Information Technology have transformed various sectors, enhancing efficiency, connectivity, and innovation. From e-commerce and healthcare to education and governance, IT enables faster decision-making, better resource management, and global communication, driving economic growth and improving quality of life in the digital age.

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