Government releases set of guidelines to make biometric authentication compulsory for e-government initiatives

The government has released a set of guidelines that make biometric authentication compulsory for e-government initiatives under the central and state governments. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has appointed consultancy firm McKinsey to prepare a Digital India Index, which will evaluate the centre and states on various key indices such as e-health, e-education, e-governance and digital infrastructure. Further, MeitY has stated that India’s digital economy is expected to grow from the current $270 billion to around $1 trillion in the next five to seven years.