In a step to accelerate the transition towards a paperless economy, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Govt. of India, has launched Digi Locker aimed at minimising the usage of physical documents and enable sharing of electronic documents (e-documents) across agencies.  DIgiLocker will enable storage of their important documents on a cloud based server which can be accessed from anywhere in the world, reducing the usage of physical documents.  This will in turn, help to check any fake documents which are circulating and eliminate them from the system.  The system comes with a dedicated storage capacity of 1 GB.

Steps to sign up for DigiLocker :

1. Use your mobile number (preferably linked with Aadhar number) to create a one time password (OTP)
2. OTP will be sent to your mobile number which is valid for 30 mins only.
3. Once logged in through mobile number, a screen will show up to select a username and password.
4. After the above step, it is optional to mention Aadhar number using fingerprint or OTP which will be valid of 30 mins only.
5. Once done, you are set to go!

It should be noted that using Aadhar number is not mandatory to use the service as a storage system, but for accessing files such as Vehicle Registration, Driving Licence etc. it becomes mandatory to link the account to Aadhar number.  Also for using further services such as electronic signatures of documents and sharing these files (which will be covered in the second part of Thursday Trivia next week), Aadhar number is a must.

Though it’s a not very time consuming to create the account, the adoption rate in a country with population of approx. 1.2 billion is slow.  With more awareness being spread with time, people will start to use the service.  Let’s have a look at the journey of DigiLocker till now.

With the launch of DIgi Locker in October 2015, there has been some increase in both registrations and documents being uploaded on the locker.  But we can see, that Government has seems to have significantly underperformed in awareness which has led to very few people using the service.  Also, from the current trend, it can be seen that, young India within age range of 21-30 years have come forward to step into the digital pond, certainly this should give a huge confidence to the Government for adding more facilities on the platform.

It’s a wait and watch to see how India becomes paperless and lives on cloud 9.