The Government launched the Environment Information System (ENVIS) portal- http://envis.nic.in, which works on improving the digital literacy in the environment sector and deliver services digitally all over the country.

1. The digitization of valuable data covering the broad spectrum of subjects on environment will serve as an asset in generating feature rich repository of information.
2. Bringing all ENVIS Centres under one roof will also facilitate convergence in data dissemination.
3. It aims to reach out to the people on environmental issues and creating more awareness among them.
4. The Ministry wants to create a vibrant network and associate all research organisations, institutions and NGOs working in the field of environment.
5. It also underlined the need to involve more people in environment, particularly in the field of waste management.
6. Environmental Information System (ENVIS) Portal a new initiative, runs parallel with the Digital India Objective.

Other programmes launched under Digital India programme by the government are:

electronic payments for government services, a geographical information system (GIS)-based decision-support system, a request for proposal for selecting private cloud service providers for government departments, the setting up of an online laboratory for students to perform virtual experiments for all Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools, the incubation of 10 projects in the area of chip-to-system design and the development of a native operating system that will support text-to-speech technology for nine regional languages.

The government is also working on the concept of digital villages—rural areas that will have telemedicine facilities, virtual classes and solar power-based WiFi hot spots.

BACKGROUND

Environmental Information System (ENVIS), a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry has been implemented since 1982. The purpose of the scheme is to integrate country-wide efforts in environmental information collection, collation, storage, retrieval and dissemination through ENVIS websites, which are dedicated to different interesting themes. The network presently consists of 69 Centres, of which 29 are hosted by the environment/forest department of State governments/UT Administrations and deal with “State of the environment and related issues”, while 40 Centres are being hosted by environment-related governmental and non-governmental organisations/institutes of professional excellence and have a thematic mandate. Major users of ENVIS include Central and State Governments, institutes and individual scientists, researchers, students and agencies carrying out environmental impact assessment of projects, as well as public.