GIST OF KURUSHETRA- December 2022- The theme of this month of Kurushetra Magazine is ‘e-Governanace’.

1. CHAPTER 1: BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

This chapter talks about that all levels of government need to be transformed by e-governance, but local governments should receive special attention because they are the ones closest to the public and serve as the primary point of contact for many.

 India is one of the most populated, diversified, and large countries in terms of its landscape. Implementing e-governance to empower its population and promote general economic growth, especially in rural areas, provides a significant challenge.

        The two significant advantages of e-governance in India are integration of technology-enabled communication

and data-driven governance.

        The internet and mobile technology have made it possible to rapidly transfer large volumes of data, which is the

foundation of efficient governance.

 Digital Inequality or Digital Divide- It refers to the gap between those who have access to modern information and communications technology (ICT) and those who don’t. All forms of digital inequity are collectively referred to as “Digital Disparities.”

 Globally, 3 billion people lack Internet connectivity, with those in developing and least-developed countries more likely to be without it than those in industrialized countries.

 Poor local infrastructure can make the Internet slow and expensive in locations with access, thus placing it out of many people’s grasp. In contrast, Internet outages can leave whole nations in the dark.

 The digital world has grown and developed primarily as a result of technological change; pillars of the information society now include e-learning, e-libraries, e-health, and e-governance.

Building Infrastructure to Overcome the Digital Divide:

 To bridge the digital gap and provide people with inexpensive, all-inclusive access to information, nations must prioritise the development of their communications and lT infrastructure.

 There remains a lot to be done, particularly in rural and distant places, even though the lT infrastructure and notably the usage of lT have improved.

        By lowering prices, boosting efficiency, and raising labour productivity, the internet may help the economy.

 But the evidence suggests that the advantages of internet technologies are not equally distributed and that differences between and within nations are widening. Those who are brighter, more connected, and more skilled have disproportionately profited from the internet revolution.

Achieving an Affordable, Inclusive internet for All

 As per the data by Internet Society 2016, currently the mobile internet signal is found within the reach of 70 percent of world population.

        The following parameters are significant in the way of achieving an affordable, inclusive internet for all.

• • Importance of Infrastructure- Governments and the business sector must collaborate to encourage network sharing and the installation of fiber optic cables to construct other types of infrastructure, such as roads and power lines.

• • • Pricing- Inexpensive and widespread Internet access at a fair price is needed as just 15 percent of people worldwide can afford to use broadband internet (World Bank 2016).
    • Digital Inclusion and Building Human Capacity- Lack of technical literacy and confidence are two major obstacles for women to go online. Education and digital literacy programs are essential to equip tomorrow’s software developers, local content creators, and policymakers.
    • Measuring Access- National statistical Organizations should systematically gather data on Internet access by gender. To create uniform measures, governments should allocate more funds and collaborate with the relevant parties.

 E-Government Development Index (EGDI)- It reflects how a country is using information technologies to promote access and inclusion of its people. The EGDI is a composite measure of three important dimensions of e-government, namely: provision of online services, telecommunication connectivity and human capacity.

• • • It is a benchmarking and developmental tool for countries to learn from each other, identify areas of strength and challenges in e-government and shape their policies and strategies in this area.
    • lndia’s ranked 105th among 193 countries having composite EDGI score of 0.5883 as per the 2022 United Nations e-government Survey,

 Digital India- It is a campaign launched by the Government of India in 2015 in order to ensure that the Government’s services are made available to citizens electronically by improved online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity and making the country digitally empowered in the field of technology.

• • • Digital India is an umbrella program covering multiple projects of Central Ministries/Departments and States/UTs.

        Some of the significant initiatives related to public service delivery are as follows:

• • • Common Services Centres -Through Village Level Entrepreneurs, CSCs provide digital government and commercial services to rural communities (VLEs).
    • Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG)-for giving citizens access to government services via mobile.
    • e-District project- Implemented at district and sub-district levels of all States/UTs, benefitting all citizens by delivering various e-Services such as Certificates (Birth, Caste, Death, Income, and Local Resident), Pension, Court cases, Land Record and other essential services.
    • DigiLocker- A secure cloud based platform for storage, sharing and verification of documents & certificates.
    • UPI- It is a leading digital payment platform. It is integrated with 330 banks and facilitated over 782 crore monthly transactions for the month of Dec 2022.
    • CO-WIN - lt is an open platform for the management of registration, appointment scheduling & managing vaccination certificates for Covid-19.
    • MyGov - lt is a citizen engagement platform that is developed to facilitate participatory governance.
    • Meripehchaan-This is a National single sign-on platform, launched in July 2022 to provide citizens ease of access to government portals.
    • Myscheme -This platform has been launched in July 2022 to facilitate citizens to avail of eligibility-based services.
    • Direct Benefit Transfers - 315 Schemes across 53 Ministries are offering Aadhaar-enabled direct benefit

transfers to citizens.

• • • Diksha - Diksha is a national-level educational platform that helps students and teachers to participate, contribute and leverage a common platform to achieve learning goals at scale for the country.

        The GoI initiatives in the direction of Data governance for the nation’s socioeconomic development are as under:

• • • Open Government Data - To facilitate data exchange and encourage innovation with regard to non- personal data. Over 5.65 lakh datasets are released over more than 12,800 catalogs.
    • API setu- Created to make data interchange across systems easier. It provides access to information from multiple sources through a single platform.

0. • The Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy aims to ensure that non-personal data and anonymized data from both Government and Private entities are safely accessible by Research and Innovation eco-system.
1. The policy aims to provide an institutional framework for data/datasets/metadata rules, standards, guidelines and protocols for sharing of non-personal data sets while ensuring privacy, security and trust.
2. The proposed policy is still being refined. On May 26, 2022, MeitY made the Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy available for public comment.

Conclusion and Way Forward:

        All levels of government need to be transformed by e-governance, but local governments should receive special attention because they are the ones closest to the public

        Improving digital infrastructure, especially in rural regions.

        E-government through regional languages is highly beneficial.

        Designing a single-view platform by integrating multiple platforms for better user experience and decision making.

While e-government focuses on creating online services, the future will center on how digital government may change governance by harnessing societal creativity and resilience to advance Sustainable Development Goals.

2. CHAPTER 2: POST OFFICE SERVICES AT THE DOORSTEP

Introduction:

India Post is the one of the oldest organization with an expanding network of 1.59 lakh post offices situated in every

corner of our country.

        It not only provides postal services but also services such as banking, insurance, passport, aadhar and even sale of

Gangajal and Prasadam of important shrines.

        It is rural-centric, with more than 90 percent network in villages. It covers more than 7 lakh villages of the country,

each post-office covering around 5 villages.

Modernization of Post Offices:

        With the roll out of Rs 4909 Cr. IT Modernisation Project 1.0 in Department of Posts, which took the pace after 2014, ensured that all 1.59 lakh POs were networked and all the services rendered by the POs were made online.

        Today NEFT, RTGS is also available to PO Saving Bank Account holders.

 DARPAN is ‘Made in India’ hand-held device with mobile connectivity having inbuilt biometric scnanner, card reader and Bluetooth thermal printer, which helps postmaster to render postal as well as financial services after proper biometric authentication of citizens at their doorstep or at their farms.

 Door-step delivery of cash by the postmasters in rural areas, has a huge socio-economic benefits to the rural people as they could now save around Rs 100-200 per trip that would have spent while withdrawing amount through ATMs (as indicated by studies).

        Registration to Passport Services are also been made available in Post offices through post office Passport Seva

Kendras, 429 of which are operational.

India Post Payment Bank (IPPB) was launched on 1 September 2018 is another mile-stone to provide door-step delivery of financial services. IPPB has established as credible Payment Bank rendering paperless financial services through tech-enabled platforms. So, far IPPB has clocked 2.36 crore transactions, involving 1.57 lakh crores, and more than 70 percent of which have been done by women in rural areas. IPPB also provides services such as insurance (life, medical and accidental) services, Aadhar services (mobile number updation) and Digital Life Certificate to pensioners.

Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) is the most popular service of IPPB through which postmen can withdraw

amount from any bank (public or private) account after biometric authentication of account holder.

Way Forward and Road Ahead:

        In India still large population lives in distant rural areas and not much educated to go for self-serving option,

hence the role of Post Offices will remain significant for next 15-20 years.

        It is important to equip the village Postmasters/Postmen with a robust and easy to use technology, enabling them

to render banking services on demand, at the doorsteps.

 In 2021, the Government of India had approved the lT Modernisation 2.0 Project for India Post, with an outlay of Rs. 5785 crore. It will upgrade the WAN (network), and also build micro-services based platform for rendering almost all the current and future services delivered by India Post, through the mobile devices.

 The post office is all set to play an important role in the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and One District One Product (ODOP) initiatives of the Government by making available its network for order fulfillment by the MSMEs, after they have received an online order.

        Further, India Post has signed an MoU with Government eMarketplace (GeM) for providing order fulfilment

services to MSME sellers registered on GeM.

 Under India Post Digital Address Code (DAC) project, each address of the country is proposed to be geo- tagged and assigned a unique alpha-numeric code. It is expected to make door-step service delivery easier.

3. CHAPTER 3: TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION FOR QUALITY EDUCATION

 Technology is the key driver in the 21st century and it is affecting every sphere of human life. It has brought a revolution in education sector also.

 National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 gives utmost importance to technology and states that “The thrust of technological interventions will be for the purposes of improving teaching-learning and evaluation processes, supporting teacher professional development, enhancing educational access, and streamlining educational planning, management, and administration etc.

To improve the school education sector in India, GoI has initiated various governance related technological interventions such as :-

 UDISE+ (Unified District Information System for Education Plus)- It is an updated and improved version of UDISE. Realizing the need for timely and accurate data which is the basis of effective and sound planning and decision-making, Ministry of Education (MeO) initiated UDISE in 2012-13 integrating DISE for elementary and secondary education, which is the largest Management Information System for School Education.

• • UDISE+ provides robust, real-time, and credible information for an objective evaluation of the system, which can be used for designing evidence based specific interventions for improvement in the school education sector.

        Performance Grading Index (PGI)- It is a tool to provide insights into the Indian school education system.

• • It grades all States/UTs on their performance across 77 indicators on school education and helps identify gaps thereby enabling all States/UTs to design appropriate interventions to bridge them.
  • This was introduced from 2018-19.

 Digital Survey for National Curriculum Framework (NCF): It aims to collect suggestions and feedback from the public at large. This will help in the formulation of National Curriculum Framework (NCF).

• • This framework is adopting a `bottom-up’ approach in which suggestions are invited from all stakeholders on the basis of which new NCF will be developed.

        NDEAR and Vidya Samiksha Kendra:

• • NDEAR (National Digital Education Architecture) has been conceived as a unifying National Digital infrastructure to energize and catalyze the education ecosystem.

• Vidya Samiksha Kendra (VSK) has been set-up at national level. It aims at using data and technology to bring jump in learning outcomes. It will include Student, Teacher and School registry which will bring synergy to the work being done in the ecosystem by integrating data from different datasets.

 PRABANDH- Project Appraisal Budgeting Achievements and Data Handling System (PRABANDH) It is a significant step towards leveraging technology to enhance efficiency and manage the implementation of the Centrally Sponsored Integrated Scheme for School Education.

        PM e-Vidya- It ensures coherent access to digital education through multimodal approach.

        NISHTHA - NISHTHA (National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement) is an integrated training programme for holistic development of teachers. at different levels of expertise/stage.

The following initiatives have been announced in Budget 2022-23 to expand the scale and scope of digital education:

        200TV Channels: To fill the learning gaps caused by the pandemic-induced closure of schools and to build a

resilient mechanism for education delivery.

        Virtual Labs: For students to have equal access to quality practical, critical thinking and practical experience for teaching-learning of Science, Mathematics and Vocational Skills.

        High Quality E-Content: In all spoken languages to be developed for delivery via internet, mobile phones, TV, and radio through Digital Teachers.

        Competitive Mechanism For E-Content: For the development of quality e-content by the teachers and to empower and equip them with digital tools of teaching and facilitate better learning outcomes.

Conclusion: An inclusive, equitable, affordable and integrated digital ecosystem is needed to facilitate and sustain

lifelong learning and to reap the benefits of inclusive technology development so that no one is left behind.

4. CHAPTER 4: MOBILE GOVERNANCE

        Mobile Governance- It is E-Governance delivered through the mobile devices, especially the smartphone.

        Need- Low PC penetration across the country, challenges related with broadband internet connectivity, limitations

of physical infrastructure (including constant power supply) and a large rural population are some of them.

Models of M-Governance:

        G2C (Government to citizens): The government interacts with citizens and vise versa

         G2E (Government to Employees): The government provides information and services to the employees

         G2G (Government to Government): Electronic sharing of data among various constituents of the government

        G2B (Government to Business): Making government systems more transparent and accessible to businesses

Examples of Popular M-governance apps are Aarogyasetu App, DigiLocker App, epathshala App, GST Rate Finder App, Indian Police at Your Call App, mAadhaar App, MADAD App, mparivahan App, mpassport Seva App, MyGOv App, PMO India App.

Fintech Revolution and M-Governance:

        Fintech, a combination of the terms “financial” and “technology,” refers to businesses that use technology to enhance or automate financial services and processes.

        It has seen exponential growth in the country in delivery of financial services over mobile devices since the rolled

out of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) by government in April 2016.

        RBl has recently come up with ‘UPI for feature phones’ which is an important addition to the existing services and is bound to help users who have less advanced mobile phones or slow internet connections.

Framework of M-governance: MEItY, Government of India has launched ‘Mobile Seva’ which provides an integrated platform for delivery of government services to citizen over mobile devices using SMS, USSD, lvRS, CBS, LBS or mobile applications installed on the mobile phones.

Challenges We still have challenges which need to be addressed to make India realize its full potential of M-Governance eco-system in India such as:

        Large number of independently working applications and services which creates confusion in the mind of users.

        Lack of digital education among the rural population.

        Access to good smartphones is still a luxury to many and it will take time before every household has access to one.

Conclusion: While many of our services are available in multiple Indian languages (and English) we will need to make the entire M-Governance eco-system linguistically inclusive and accessible, to ensure maximum impact.

5. CHAPTER 5: E-GOVENANCE IN HEALTH SERVICES DELIVERY

Government has launched various health related online and mobile service such as:

        National Health Portal serves as a single point of access to health-related information for citizens.

        e-Hospital Management System tracks the delivery of patient care and diagnostic services.

        Mera Aspataal initiative captures patient feedback for the services received by them in hospitals.

        TB Missed Call Initiative is a mobile service to provide treatment and counseling to TB patients.

        Kilkari application is used by the government to deliver free messages every week pertaining to pregnancy and child care between the second trimester of pregnancy until the child is one year old.

        M-cessation encourages the people to quit the use of tobacco.

        Nikshay platform for tracking TB patients.

        Mother and Child Tracking System for monitoring pregnant women and children under five years of age.

        Ayushman Bharat -Health and Wellness Centre portal for overseeing the delivery of comprehensive primary

healthcare services through Health and Wellness centres across the country.

Other policy measures to boost tech-enabled health care delivery system:

 National Health Policy, 2017- It envisions a digital health ecosystem and recognizes the integral role of technologies such as eHealth, mHealth, Internet of Things (loT), wearables and cloud, among others, in the delivery of health services.

        In 2018, NITI Aayog released a proposal on National Health Stack with the objective of providing a framework for country’s futuristic digital health system.

        eSanjeevani OPD developed by (C-DAC) to provide Medical teleconsultation services to Indian citizens.

 Telemedicine would help in providing health services to semi-urban and remote areas. Prior to COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine field was focused on developing wearable gadgets, diagnostic and medicine delivery solution, but post pandemic medical consultancy and delivering healthcare services become center of attraction.

        SWASTH is a private sector owned telemedicine app to deliver equitable and affordable healthcare in India

NATIONAL DIGITAL HEALTH MISSION (NDHM)-

        NDHM aims to make India Self-reliant in providing universal health coverage to all the citizens in the country.

        It aligns with the goals and objectives of the National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 and the National Digital Health Blueprint to create a digital infrastructure for providing healthcare services across the country.

        NDHM envisions a national digital health ecosystem in India which supports universal health coverage that is:

Efficient, Accessible, Inclusive, Affordable, Timely and Safe.

Salient features of NDHM: NDHM will implement the following digital systems across the country:

        Unique Health ID: like an Aadhaar ID to identify and authenticate an individual based on past health records.

        Digi Doctor: A repository of doctors with individual details like name, qualifications , other necessary details.

        Health Facility Register (HFR): It will be centrally maintained and facilitate standardized data exchange of private and public health facilities in India.

        Personal  Health  Records  (PHR): Electronic  record  which  would  contain  health-related  information  of individual.

        Electronic Medical Records (EMR): An app that contains medical and treatment history of a patient.

6. CHAPTER 6: CITIZEN PARTICIPATION AND RURAL WELL-BEING

Introduction : India  is  the world’s  largest democracy; its  democratic freedom  and  expression lie  with  citizen participation and their involvement in every sphere of public policymaking. The building blocks of good governance are citizen participation and civic engagement, and e-governance is the critical component of good governance.

5. Governance and Rural economy

 GoI launched National e-Governance Plan in 2006, especially for the rural areas to provide them services including birth and death certificates, land registration, employment opportunities, market-related information, farming, and veterinary services, education and matrimonial along with a special effort to capture the information about the people below the poverty line.

 Some of the popular of initiatives include e-Panchayat, e-Gram, and Priasoft, e-District, e-Choupal, e-Shakti, TARA haat, e-Health, e-Education, e-Sanjeevani, e-Hospital, e-Pathshala, e-RaktKosh, Bhoomi, Gyandoot, e-Suvidha, e-NAM, e-Sewa, etc.

Dimensions of Rural e-Governance:

        ICT Infrastructure : It plays a foundational role in the rollout of e-Governance services which determines the success of ICT and e-governance projects by the Government.

        Access to e-Governance services: Better accessibility would lower the cost of availing such services.

        Mobile First: Rural users are more likely to have smartphone than laptops / desktops to access e-governance

services.

         E-Literacy and awareness: basic awareness of IT skills, several e-Governance initiatives and services available.

        Usage behaviour: Pattern of usage in terms of consumption or utilization of the services, behavioral change in

the rural society in seeking the e-governance services.

        Localized content : Availability of localized content from rural areas for e-commerce, tourism, consumption of content by non-local and external players such as industries.

        Employment and productivity : Generation of alternate source of income through employment locally or remotely, improvement in productivity through information available, innovations at the grassroot level

        Grievance redressal : Ease with which grievance can be raised and resolved.

        Participatory governance : Feedback and regular participation in improving governance.

 Inclusion : Inclusive growth by reducing the social and economic inequalities, access to e-governance services by socially backward and marginalized communities, all genders, language, region, disability, age groups or other status.

1. 5. Governance and Citizen Participation

        To design a suitable governance initiative in rural areas, diverse needs and people’s capabilities should be

considered during the policy formulation. Hence, there is a need to design customised e-governance initiatives.

 Factors that affect customised e-governance are: the needs and expectations of people, socio-economic dynamics, contextual reality, ease and simplified design and structure of the policy, feedback mechanism, outcome analysis, etc.

        Citizen governance and civicengagement are two important pillars in strengtheningvalued-citizen participation.

• • • Citizen governance is a value-based proposition, helps in removing gaps and differences between governments and citizens.
    • Civic engagement processes is a process in which active participation and collaboration among individuals, institutions, communities and governments is involved and it helps in shaping public policy.

Citizen Participation and Governance

        Citizen as a customer: As public services are meant for public use and consumption. Hence consumer feedback

is very essential in designing public services and ensuring quality service delivery at an affordable cost.

        Citizen as an owner: citizens are the real owners of public services and even they are considered as investors in public services and as an owner he/she must seek information about public service and delivery.

        Citizen as a co-producer: Citizens also  act as a partner with government hence their involvement and participation will improve the quality and timely delivery of services.

        Citizen as a quality evaluator: Being the coproducer and consumer, the citizen can become the evaluator of the public services quality and their delivery effectiveness.

Citizen participation and framework:

 The key components needed to enable successful and meaningful citizen involvement in e-governance projects are: need analysis, degree of engagement, creation of engagement team, engagement activities, analysis of outcome, feedback analysis and institutionalization of engagement.

 Citizen participation can be viewed from 3 different perspectives; firstly, at what stages there is a need for participation; secondly, at what levels and thirdly, what are the tools through which participation can become more meaningful.

 Citizen participation ranges from just information receiving/sharing to being highly responsible in managing the process with accountability. The higher is the citizen participation, the better is the governance and its effect on the socio-economic outcome and well-being.

Benefits of citizen participation:

        Smooth formulation and implementation of public policy.

        Maintaining transparency.

        Makes citizen more accountable, responsible and policies more people-driven, participatory, and meaningful.

        Helps in improving the political positioning of marginalized and vulnerable groups.

        Helps in developing long-term sustainable e-governance and outcome-focused initiatives.

        Community empowerment, leading to better awareness and superior monitoring.

Conclusion: Bringing individuals, institutions, corporate, and governments together is the key mandate of inclusiveness and sets the agenda for e-governance. The spirit of ‘We, the people of India’ embedded in our preamble cannot be translated on ground without people’s participation in governance. The e-governance is enabler in that transformation. This requires collaborative effort from all the stakeholders.

7. CHAPTER 7: NEW AGE TECHNOLOGY

Introduction:

        Application of Technology in governance is important for good governance as - it brings transparency, minimizes

interface between government and public, is unbiased and can accelerate service delivery while fixing accountability.

 These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management. The resulting benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/ or cost reductions.

Good governance to e-governance:

 The 4 pillars on which the edifice of good governance rests, in essence are: a) Ethos (of service to the citizen), b) Ethics (honesty integrity and transparency), c) Equity (treating all citizens alike with empathy for the weaker sections), and d) Efficiency (speedy and effective delivery of service without harassment).

        Citizens are at the center of any model of good governance.

        The World Bank emphasizes on the centrality of use of ICT, which is a component of e-governance to achieve the objective of good governance.

Scope of e-governance:

Government-to-government (G2G):

        A major scope of corruption in government-to-government transaction was lack of transparency and check and balances.

        The inclusion of e-governance solution like e-file has a tendency to check those malpractices and to improve efficiency.

Government-to-Citizens (G2C):

        It is most used e-governance model.

        Government provides various services using ICT. For e.g., JAM Trinity, DBT etc.

Government-to-Employees (G2E):

        Use of ICT to make the interaction with employees more hassle-free.

Government-to-Business (G2B):

        Government is using ICT to reduce hurdles in ‘Ease of doing businesses’.

Government initiatives and Roadmap for e-Governance:

        National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) was launched by Government of India in 2006 which comprised 27

Mission Mode Projects and 8 components.

 Various policy initiatives taken to develop core and support infrastructure for e-Governance includes State Data Centres (SDCs), State Wide Area Networks (S.W.A. N), Common Services Centres (CSCs) and middleware gateways i.e National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG), State e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG), and Mobile e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG).

 The important support components include Core policies and guidelines on Security, HR, Citizen Engagement, Social Media as well as Standards related to Metadata, interoperability, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security etc.

        Government of India approved e-Kranti Programme in 2015 with the vision of ‘Transforming e-Governance for Transforming Governance.

New Age Analytics, AI and Machine Learning in E-Governance:

 Many Smart Dashboards have been created that shows real-time data on government schemes and compares them between states and districts on several developmental indicators, which are now available in public domain. Like Champions of Change Dashboard developed by NITI Ayog ranks all 112 Aspiration Districts in India.

        AICTE has started real time video conferencing based inspection where everything is recorded and time stamped.

        Career platforms built by GoI, powered by AI recommend courses to the student based on their interests and existing knowledge and skill.

Conclusion: The new disruptive technologies of the present time have large capability to change the lives of people and going to be the basis of growth in all sectors. But at the same time, it is also important to ensure that their benefits should equitable, accessible and fair.

8. CHAPTER 8: E-GOVERNANCE IN TOURISM

Introduction:

        World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), in its report has revealed the travel and tourism sector’s contribution to the Indian economy could surpass pre-pandemic levels, by the end of 2022.

        According to report, the contribution of tourism sector to nation’s economy will reach almost Rs. 15.9 trillion in

2022, 1% above the 2019 levels.