new delhi law communications and it minister ravi shankar prasad on saturday said the digital infrastructure in the country has helped provide a variety of egovernance and direct transfer services during the covid19 pandemic with subordinate courts too handling over 73 lakh cases virtuallyin addition more that 17 lakh cases have been heard virtually by high courts and another 7800 cases have been handled by the supreme court in this fashion prasad said in his keynote address at the late thakur prasad centenary memorial lecture digital india goes beyond what indian it companies such as wipro and infosys have done to empower ordinary indians and bridge the digital divide he said through a video link thakur prasad a noted lawyer and one of the prominent figures in bjp who served as a minister in bihar was prasads father over the last fiveandahalf years nearly rs 11 lakh crore have gone into bank accounts of the poor which are linked to aadhaar and helped prevent leakages of around rs 17 lakh crore which were earlier pocketed by middlemen he added digital governance leads to good governance he saidwhile these transactions have resulted in the generation of billions of data on individuals prasad made it clear that the government was going to ensure that this data was protected data is an asset a critical and strategic asset who owns this data data of indians belongs to india we shall not compromise on data sovereignty we will not tolerate data imperialism i am very happy that this is finding global support prasad who is piloting the data protection bill saidhe also said there was a need to strike a balance between privacy and disclosure of data of those who were trying to destabilise the country