Digi Locker –Indian Digital Locker, How much the youth is actually using it?

Abstract

Information and Communication Tools (ICT) are a prerequisite these days for ensuring better governance and administration. It not only improves the quality of administration but also facilitates procedures by making it more efficient and user-friendly. Government of India (GOI) has proposed many schemes under the Digital India umbrella; and DigiLocker is one of the flagship schemes initiated to bring a total digital change in the life of citizens of India especially the young citizens who are the future of India. The scheme has an inherent potential to give an opportunity to a large section of population with a paradigm shift for ushering in e-governance. DigiLocker, the Indian Digital Locker, allows an individual to save online and digitally share the documents issued by any government department, educational institute, transport department and other agencies. This research paper empirically calculates if the usage of DigiLocker is dependent on Gender (Male/Female), school background (Private/Government), area in which their college is, type of course (Undergraduate/Professional/Engineering) they are pursuing, year in which they studying (I/ II/ III/ IV year) of the course they are pursuing. The paper further analyzes the documents undergraduate college and engineering students maintain in their DigiLocker, whether DigiLocker documents are accepted in various undergraduate Institutes, if the students find DigiLocker secure or not, and the ease of use of digilocker. And finally, a few suggestions are made to make DigiLocker more usable among the young students that would have a marked change in digitalization scenario of India.