Union Minister Vaishnaw Launches Digital Public Infra Platform; Check Details

New Delhi: Union Minister for Communications, Railways, Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday launched ‘NITI For States’, the digital public infra platform of NITI Aayog aimed to bolster digital governance.

‘Niti For States’ is an integrated platform hosting numerous documents and datasets required for the Central government’s Viksit Bharat action plan.

It is a repository of 7,400 best practices, 5,000 policy documents, 900 datasets, and 1,400 data profiles from across 10 sectors — agriculture, education, energy, health, livelihoods and skilling, manufacturing, MSME, urbanisation and water resources.

Launching the platform at Rang Bhawan Auditorium here, the minister stressed on the need to further simplify economic laws in a modern and relevant way.

Vaishnaw spoke about the four pillars of government’s policymaking approach — physical, social and digital infrastructure, inclusive growth, boosting manufacturing, and simplification. He said more than 1,500 “archaic laws” have been addressed by the government, like the Indian Telegraph Act 1885, which has been replaced by the Telecommunications Act, 2023.

“Now, with the same comprehensiveness, we need to further simplify economic laws in a modern and relevant way based on our growth requirements,” Vaishnaw added.

Underscoring the role of NITI Aayog in the process of simplification, he said, “NITI has the flexibility of a think tank to onboard 2,000 good lawyers and give each of them one law to explore how it can be simplified. According to a study, there are around 35,000 such laws that require simplification. If we address all those laws, in the next five years we can create a legal framework to reach the goal of Viksit Bharat.”