The digital divide

Detail

1. What the digital divide is (NCERT)

• Digital divide means that access to ICT (Information and Communication Technology: computers, mobile phones, the internet and the services that run on them) is uneven. So the benefits of ICT are also shared unevenly.
• Why it happens:
• Countries and groups differ in their economic position (income, investment), their political position (policy, governance, stability) and their social position (education, caste, class, gender).
• These differences decide how fast a country can give ICT access and its benefits to its people.

• The faster a country does this, the more it gains from ICT-based development.

• Result between countries:

• Developed countries have generally surged ahead.
• Developing countries have lagged behind.

• The gap between the two groups is the digital divide. NCERT asks about this in exercise 2(iv): "Explain the digital divide."

• Divides within countries:

• The divide is not only global. It also exists inside a country.
• In large countries such as India and Russia, metropolitan centres (big cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Moscow and St Petersburg) are better connected.

• Peripheral rural areas (remote villages, far from the core cities) are poorly connected.

• Link to the topic: quaternary and quinary activities (knowledge work, IT-BPM, research and decision-making) depend on ICT. So the digital divide also decides where these high-value jobs come up. They gather in well-connected metros and miss the poorly connected periphery.

2. The four dimensions of the divide

Having a network nearby is not enough. The divide has four layers:

Dimension	What it means	Example of a gap
Access	Physical infrastructure (towers, optical fibre, electricity) and devices (phone, computer)	A village with no 4G tower and no broadband
Affordability	Whether people can pay for data plans and devices	A family that cannot buy a smartphone for each child
Skills (digital literacy)	Digital literacy: the ability to use digital devices and services safely and usefully	A person who owns a phone but cannot fill in an online form or use UPI
Use	Whether, and how well, people actually use ICT to learn, earn and reach services	Using the internet only for entertainment, not for jobs or education

• Who is left out: divides run by income (poor and rich), gender (women and men), rural and urban areas, age (young and old), language (most online content is in English) and disability (websites and apps that are not accessible).

3. The global picture — data

• ITU Facts and Figures 2025 (ITU: International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency for ICT):
• About 6 billion people, or roughly three-quarters of humanity, were using the internet in 2025. The revised figure for 2024 was 5.8 billion [3].
• 2.2 billion people were still offline in 2025, down from a revised 2.3 billion in 2024 [3]. Earlier ITU estimates had put the 2024 offline figure at about 2.6 billion, roughly a third of humanity.

• 96% of offline people live in low- and middle-income countries [3]. Africa has the lowest share of people online.

• Gaps by group (ITU, 2025):

Divide	Online share (2025)
Urban and rural	85% urban vs 58% rural [3]
Men and women	77% men vs 71% women [3]
Age	82% of 15–24-year-olds vs 72% of the rest of the population [3]

• Affordability: internet access is still unaffordable in about 60% of low- and middle-income countries (2025) [3].
• Quality gap: more people now get online, but the speed and quality of their connection still differ widely. So two "online" people may not get the same benefit [3].

4. The Indian picture

• Tele-density (the number of telephone connections, fixed line and mobile, per 100 people in an area): TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) data show that urban tele-density is far above rural tele-density. Urban areas have more connections than people, because many people own more than one SIM. Rural areas lag well behind.
• Mobile coverage (September 2024):
• India has 6,44,131 villages. More than 6,22,804 of them have mobile coverage.

• More than 6,14,564 villages have 4G coverage [2].

• Tribal gap:

• Under PM JANMAN (Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan, run by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs), more than 4,543 PVTG habitations were found to have no mobile coverage. PVTGs are Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.
• Only 1,136 of these had been covered by 2024 [2].

• By October 2024, 1,018 mobile towers had been sanctioned for 4G in PVTG habitations, at an estimated cost of ₹1,014 crore [2].

• COVID-19 (2020–21):

• Schools closed, and teaching moved online.
• Children without smartphones, data or a stable network, mostly in rural areas and poor homes, lost months of learning.
• This showed that the divide is a gap in education and opportunity, not only a gap in technology.

5. India's responses

Initiative	What it does	Status / fact
Digital India (2015)	Umbrella programme to make India a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy	Launched in 2015
BharatNet	Optical fibre broadband to every gram panchayat (village council); run under the Ministry of Communications	Over 2.14 lakh gram panchayats connected as of 27 December 2024 [2]
Digital Bharat Nidhi (earlier the Universal Service Obligation Fund, USOF)	Pays for mobile and broadband in underserved areas	8,730 mobile towers installed; over 1.99 lakh villages covered by Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL) (27 December 2024) [2]
PM-WANI (Prime Minister's Wi-Fi Access Network Interface)	Public Wi-Fi hotspots run by small local operators	2,47,076 hotspots set up (27 December 2024) [2]
PMGDISHA (Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan)	Digital literacy training for rural households	Targets the skills gap
Common Service Centres (CSCs)	Village-level centres that deliver government and business services online	Bring digital services to people who have no device or skills
Digital public infrastructure (DPI) — Aadhaar and UPI	Aadhaar: a 12-digit biometric identity; UPI (Unified Payments Interface): instant mobile payments	Low-cost, open platforms that targets the use and affordability gaps
Satellite internet	Broadband from satellites for hilly, island and remote areas, where laying fibre is hard	Being rolled out

• Grievance and safety measures:
• The Sanchar Saathi portal lets citizens track and report mobile connections taken in their name without consent ("Know Your Mobile Connections").

• TRAI uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to detect unregistered telemarketers [2].

• How the schemes fit the four dimensions: BharatNet, Digital Bharat Nidhi and satellite internet tackle access. PM-WANI and cheap data tackle affordability. PMGDISHA and CSCs tackle skills. UPI, Aadhaar and e-governance tackle use.

Prelims Hooks

• The digital divide comes from economic, political and social differences. Its result depends on how fast a country gives ICT access to its people (NCERT).
• NCERT's example of a divide within countries is India and Russia: metros are better connected than peripheral rural areas.
• ITU Facts and Figures 2025: about 6 billion people online and 2.2 billion offline. 96% of offline people are in low- and middle-income countries [3].
• Rural–urban internet use (2025): 58% rural vs 85% urban. Gender: 71% women vs 77% men [3].
• BharatNet takes optical fibre to gram panchayats, not to individual homes or district headquarters. Over 2.14 lakh GPs were connected by December 2024 [2].
• Digital Bharat Nidhi is the new name of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) [2].
• PM-WANI = public Wi-Fi hotspots. PMGDISHA = rural digital literacy. Do not mix the two.
• Tele-density = telephone connections per 100 people. Urban tele-density can be above 100, because one person may hold several SIMs.
• Trap: India's 4G coverage reached over 6.14 lakh of 6.44 lakh villages by September 2024 [2]. Coverage is not the same as use: affordability and skills gaps remain.

Mains Points

• Causes and pattern (GS-I, distribution of services):
• ICT infrastructure follows income and population density. So it gathers in metros and the IT-BPM hubs (Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, NCR).
• Hilly, tribal, island and Northeastern areas are left behind. Laying fibre and building towers there costs more for each user.

• This spatial divide reinforces the core–periphery gap in quaternary and quinary jobs.

• Effects:

• The divide turns into gaps in education (seen in COVID-19 online learning), health (telemedicine), finance (UPI, DBT) and jobs.
• Women, the elderly, persons with disabilities and speakers of non-English languages are hit hardest.

• Globally, 2.2 billion people offline in 2025 [3] means developing countries risk missing out on knowledge-economy gains.

• Policy response (GS-III, infrastructure):

• India uses a layered approach. BharatNet, Digital Bharat Nidhi towers and satellite broadband address access. PM-WANI addresses affordability. PMGDISHA and CSCs address skills. UPI and Aadhaar-based DPI address use.

• The gaps that remain are last-mile fibre upkeep, the cost of devices, local-language content, and turning coverage into meaningful use.

• Way forward:

• Focus on quality and speed, not just coverage.
• Digital literacy for women and the elderly.
• Accessible design for people with disabilities.
• Vernacular content (content in Indian languages).
• Community Wi-Fi in PVTG and border areas.