RLG India’s Clean to Green Campaign Commences E-waste Collection Program in 5 New Cities this Year

Aims to connect with bulk consumers and dealers for collection of e-waste

Ms. Radhika Kalia, MD, RLG India, who drives the Clean to Green campaign, said, “Under this program, we acquire discarded and unwanted electronic products and recycle them to protect the environment. The e-waste can either be dropped by owners at our various collection centres, or, on request, collected by our team from homes.” 

In FY 2020-21, the Clean to Green campaign would carry out activities through its collection program across five major Indian cities and regions – Delhi, NCT, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad – touching several stakeholder segments including households, bulk consumers, offices, RWAs and dealers. The campaign commenced on July 15, 2020 in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, with a training session for our team members from the five cities and regions, followed by the official collection vehicle ‘E – Waste Pick-up Truck’ flag off.

The vehicle, accompanied by a team of ‘Clean to Green E-champions,’ would undergo a month long pilot test in Noida; the Clean to Green E-champions would create awareness among the various stakeholder segments about responsible disposal of e-waste, and facilitate the E – Waste Pick-up Truck’s collection of e-waste. Additionally, if permitted by the COVID-19 lockdown rules, promotional activities such as awareness and collection canopies, fun games and interactive sessions with stakeholders might be organized. 

“Based on Noida city’s pilot-run outcome, we would replicate the process for the remaining cities in the country,” Ms. Kalia added.

About Clean to Green Collection Process

The Clean to Green collection program seeks to bring together the various stakeholder segments, including citizens, bulk consumers, manufacturers, retailers, junk dealers, and corporations to strive towards resource preservation and prevent harm to the environment through appropriate disposal of electronic waste. The process would enable stakeholders to dispose-off e-waste relatively easily through the E Waste Pick-up truck, dropping e-waste at the numerous collection points and centres set up as part of the program, or requesting a pick-up. 

Through a well-organized and systematic collection and recycling processes, the program seeks to streamline the unorganized e-waste sector and create better job opportunities and wealth for the growth of the Indian economy.

Govt Increases Digital India Program Fund by 23% to Rs 3,958 Cr

The government has increased the outlay for digital India programme by 23 per cent to Rs 3,958 crore for 2020-21 compared to the actual allocation in the current fiscal.

The increase has been mainly on account of incentives to be given for electronic manufacturing, research and development, development of manpower for the segment, cyber security and promotion of IT and IT enabled services.

The finance ministry had allocated Rs 3,750.76 crore in the previous budget but the same was revised downward to Rs 3,212.52 crore, according to the budget document released on Saturday.

"The Government has been taking several initiatives on continuous basis for promotion of electronics manufacturing in the country to provide an enabling environment for the industry to compete globally. Electronics manufacturing is one of the important pillars of the Digital India Programme and the target to achieve net zero imports is a striking demonstration of intent," the document said.

Government has increased provision for promotion of Electronics and IT hardware manufacturing through modified special incentive package scheme, electronics development fund and electronics manufacturing cluster to Rs 980 crore from Rs 690 crore in the current fiscal.

The research and development programme under the Ministry of Electronics and IT will get 75 per cent higher fund in 2020-21 compared to Rs 435 crore in the current fiscal.

The fund is envisaged to be spent on R&D activity in Electronics, nano and microelectronics including semiconductor integrated circuit layout design registry, medical electronics and health informatics, innovation promotion and start-ups, high performance computing including National Supercomputing Mission, open source etc.

The fund allocation for cyber security projects and promotion of IT and ITeS industries have been increased to Rs 170 crore each from Rs 102 crore and Rs 90 crore respectively.

The government has increased allocation for National Knowledge Network to Rs 400 crore from Rs 274 crore in the current fiscal.

Government has slashed funds for promotion of digital payment by more than half to Rs 220 crore for 2020-21 from the Rs 480 crore it allocated for the current fiscal.

The fund for Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan will remain unchanged at Rs 400 crore in the upcoming fiscal year, according to the budget document. PTI PRS MSS

Tech Start-ups and Digital Revolution in India

India is one of the fastest growing markets for Internet and digital services. With an impressive growth rate of 11% and over 462 million Internet users, India is now catching the eyes of global firms who wish to cash in the growing market. In the next few decades, this Internet economy will become one of the most significant contributors to the country’s income and will generate an exorbitant amount of jobs. Thus, this Internet-based business module will contribute towards the whole economic ecosystem of the country.

Digital Economy of India

Emerging as a global player in almost all sectors, India has also shown promise in the field of digital technologies with impressive numbers and proved leadership. The new leadership in the political domain has opened up new avenues for companies in this domain from all the around. The current government has brought fresh schemes which have fuelled the digital economy and converted it into a major growth enabler. The Digital India Programme has been mentioned all around the world as a resounding nod to the digital opportunities. These novel programmes have enabled the country to become one of the biggest income opportunities for digital companies around the world.

The growth of the digital economy has impacted certain areas which have seen tremendous augmentation in the past few areas. These areas include:

• Digital Payments:Government initiatives such as Demonetization have paved the way for digital payments all around the country. Multiple digital wallets saw a massive rise in their user base, which include Paytm, Airtel Payments Bank, Mobikwik, and Freecharge. Apart from private wallets, the government itself has invested heavily in digital payments with its e-wallet application BHIM.


• Governance and Services on Demand: The ease of access of government services such as Passport, Aadhaar, E-Visa and many more have created a digital bridge between the citizens and the government.


• Connectivity: The increase in the number of users has also led to a huge demand in the connectivity industry. Be it internet service providers or digital applications, both the fronts have seen tremendous growth, leading to excessive economic results.

Multiple sectors in the country are benefiting from the digital economy, including health, education, infrastructure and many more. This a good sign as it can end up uplifting the whole economy and the digital revolution can end up boosting the economy more than the other prominent revolutions.

Key Trends in the Digital Progress of India

Features such as local language computing, frugal innovation, and open source software are the next leg of digital progression in countries such as India. These areas showcase the potential of India and the need to strengthen infrastructure and train resources. The digital economy has its own set of challenges, some of which are listed below:

• Connectivity:Slow and delayed infrastructure is the biggest hurdle faced by the growing digital revolution. The spectrum availability is comparatively lower than most developed countries. There needs to be an action plan to convert the current infrastructure to state of the art.


• IT Literacy:The current state of IT literacy in India is below par which is extremely necessary for the digital services to stay in the race with the masses.


• Security: As the dependency on data increases, security is a big concern. Data vulnerability and phishing attacks are becoming huge issues which can come at the cost of critical data.

There are a lot of innovative startups that are contributing towards the development of the digital economy in the country. We have amassed a list of few of them below:

• Hike:Hike Messenger is an Indian born cross-platform messaging service for the masses with smartphones. Starting as a messaging service, Hike has transformed into an E-wallet to capture the digital payments user base as well.


• Exotel:A cloud telephony company in Bangalore, Exotel provides services including virtual phone numbers and telephony applications which eliminates the need for call centers, bringing down organizational cost. The organization boasts of clients such as UBER, Flipkart, Ola, and Redbus.


• Zoom Car: India’s own car-sharing startup Zoomcar has tapped the 3 billion USD car rental market. The company raised serious funding in its original funding rounds and operates in multiple metro cities.


• Hackr.io: Hackr.io recommends the best online programming and design courses and tutorials for easier access and online learning. The most prominent factor of the website is that all the tutorials are submitted and voted by the users in the programming community. These courses cover a wide variety of sectors, including Android development, AWS, AI and many other programming languages. Programming is the new literacy and Hackr.io is on the mission to help programmers and designers learn better.

Innovative start-ups such as the ones mentioned above are fueling the growth of the digital revolution in India. To build on the revolution, it is important to understand the need for the improvement of public services through fin-tech technologies. The intent should be to deliver advanced digital solutions for the fascinating problems of the country that can make a huge difference to the economy.

Budget 2018: Digital India Fund Doubles To Rs. 3073 crore; To Include AI and Robotics

In his address to the Parliament, while presenting the Budget for 2018, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced that Budget doubled the fund allocation on Digital India programme to Rs 3073 crore in 2018-19.

Additionally, he also stated that NITI Aayog will initiate a national program to direct efforts in artificial intelligence in the country.

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) will launch a Mission on Cyber-Physical Systems to support the establishment of centres of excellence for research, training and skilling in robotics, artificial intelligence, digital manufacturing, big data analysis, quantum communication and internet of things. "To invest in research training, and skilling in robotics, AI, digital manufacturing, big data intelligence, quantum communications and art of the things, the DST will launch a mission on cyberspace in support of the establishment of centre of excellence. I have doubled their allocation on the digital India program to Rs 3,073 crore in 2018-19," said finance minister Jaitley.

He said that the global economy is transforming into digital economy due to the development of cutting-edge technology in the digital space-machine learning, AI, IoT, 3D printing and likes. "Initiatives such as Digital India, start-up India, Make in India would help to establish itself as knowledge and digital society. Niti Ayog will establish a national programme to direct our efforts in the area of AI including research, and development of its applications," Jaitley said.

Notably, in September 2017, despite PM Modi’s ‘Digital India’ campaign India slipped to 91th rank in Network Readiness Index Rank, an yearly report by World Economic Forum. Notably, India’s network readiness index in 2013 was 61.

Besides government, there are few global tech companies that too are supporting Digital India programme as in November last year, Facebook introduced its digital and startup training hubs in India aimed at helping small businesses and people grow by giving them the digital skills they need. Through these hubs Facebook plans to train more than half a million people in the country by 2020.

In early 2017, Google too introduced Digital Unlocked program, a program aimed at getting all of India’s 51 million small and medium businesses (SMBs) online.

Google Launches Indian Teens Campaign For Safer Web

As part of the India Digital Literacy and Internet Safety Campaign, Google India announced the launch of Web Rangers, which is a program that empowers teens to promote the safe use of the Internet among their peers.

Web Rangers will provide training to help teens create their cyber safety campaign to enable themselves and their peers think about their online behaviour and how to keep each other safe online. The program will take young people aged between 14 -17, representing 50 schools in Hyderabad, Bangalore and New Delhi through training workshops that will equip them with knowledge in online safety. The New Delhi workshop is being held today, with the first workshop for students in Hyderabad already having been taken place on 27th November 2014 and in Bangalore on the 4th of February 2015.

In addition, the program will also introduce a contest where students across the country will be given twelve weeks to create and run their own online safety campaigns, encouraging young people in their schools and communities to consider issues such as the effects of cyber-bullying, managing one's own digital footprint and online tricks and scams.

These youth-created online or offline educational campaigns can take any form, including online videos and other social media content, sketches and in-school events. The creators of the most creative and impactful internet safety campaign as chosen from this contest, will head to Delhi to present their work to a panel of judges. The winners of the contest will be announced in May of 2015.

Sunita Mohanty, Director of Product Quality Operations at Google India says “Young people use the web for everything from connecting with friends to doing their homework. This puts them in the best position to share with their peers what’s acceptable and what’s not—in language that other young people will respect and understand.”

"Web Rangers have the ability to reach out to hundreds, if not thousands, of their peers. We hope that teens talking to teens about this important topic will make a meaningful impact”.

Web Rangers is a part of a global program that Google has run in countries including New Zealand, Israel, Turkey and the Czech Republic.