NEW DELHI: A key part of the Digital India initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the free government scheme that provides a virtual vault in cyberspace for the safe-keep of documents like birth certificates and property papers has attracted 830,075 people.

As easy as opening an email account, the free Digital Locker facility on a cloud, or cyberspace, allows any individual with an Adhaar card and a linked mobile phone to sign up. It's a personal storage space to securely store e-documents and links of such official certificates.

"One of the aims of Digital India is that a person should have private space on a public cloud. It is one of the desirable deliverables of this initiative," Ram Sewak Sharma, secretary in the Department of Information Technology, told IANS in an interview.

"A Digital Locker account is a convenient way of storing certificates in a digitised format. A person can then conveniently see his/her certificates online. Various agencies will also be able to push documents into the locker. These can also be shared electronically," Sharma said.

A "cloud" in computer jargon can be described as a network of servers that is hosted on the Internet rather than on the local server of individuals or organisations, allowing a much larger space to store data, and higher speeds to manage and process the same, in a cost-effective manner.

Each Aadhaar-linked digital locker, which is hosted on such a cloud by the Indian government , comes with 1GB of free memory space. The locker has five components: "My Certificates", "My Profile", "My Issuer", "My Requester" and "Directories".

"A person has a number of certificates issued to him - for education, birth, property. When they are digitally stored, it decreases administrative overheads of the government. There will also be less fraud. Whatever you submit, you will be held responsible," Sharma said.

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