Union Budget 2024: National Digital Library Mission likely to be in focus with AI’s growth

The government has evinced a keen interest in using the evolving Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the democratisation of knowledge and information sharing.

The National Digital Library Mission, which was launched to cater to the e-learning needs of students at all levels, is likely to remain in focus in the Union Budget 2024-25.

The government has evinced a keen interest in using the evolving Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the democratisation of knowledge and information sharing.

The synthesis of the AI application with a mission that has been launched to create a round-the-clock integrated digital knowledge source for the country is widely expected to get a push in the next budget.

The Ministry of Education was allocated Rs 1,12,899 crore in the Budget for 2023-24, which was 13 percent higher than the revised estimates for 2022-23.

Higher resources were allocated to finance new initiatives such as teacher training in innovative pedagogy, professional development, and ICT implementation; libraries - digital and physical, and higher education.

The National Digital Library Mission, which was dedicated to the nation in June 2018, has become more significant after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted school education for two years.

To bridge the gap, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget for 2023-24 announced that a National Digital Library for children would be created to enable availability of quality books to all.

The Finance Minister proposed that the books will be made available across languages, genres, levels and geographies and device-agnostic accessibility.

States would also be motivated to set up physical libraries at panchayat and ward levels and provide digital infrastructure to access the National Digital Library resources.

It has also been proposed to include NGOs to spread literacy and inculcate reading habits among children. Besides financial regulators, various organisations have also been asked to share resources to spread financial literacy.

A new National Digital Library portal was launched in July this year, which boasts more than 1 billion content pieces and more than 80 million users. The digital library hosts content like books, articles, audio, thesis, and videos relevant to users from varying educational levels.

It also provides interface support for vernacular languages. One can select the language of his/her choice to search or browse content.