Following the 2025–26 Economic Survey highlighting rising digital addiction among youth, Maharashtra IT Minister Ashish Shelar has directed the formation of an expert task force. The team will study children’s social media usage, mental health impacts, screen-time management, and formulate policies ensuring safe, balanced, and responsible digital engagement for the state’s 40 million minors.

Mumbai: The economic survey 2025-26 released by the union ministry of finance last week, highlighted the growing digital addiction among youth, following which Maharashtra’s minister of information technology Ashish Shelar directed the department to appoint an expert task force to study children’s digital addiction.

Survey Recommends Age Limits and Digital Restrictions

The economic survey highlighted the increasing risks of social media addiction among youth and minors. The report recommends setting age limits on social media usage for children and imposing restrictions on digital advertisements targeted at minors.

To deal with the issue in Maharashtra, Shelar wrote a letter to Virendra Singh, Principal secretary of Information technology to appoint an expert task force and undertake a comprehensive study of the issue to formulate a balanced and well-informed policy for the state. The proposed task force will include education experts, psychiatrists, child counselors, technology experts, management experts, doctors, legal experts, as well as officials from relevant government departments.

The scope of work of the proposed task force will include child protection and safety, impact on mental health, balanced and responsible use of digital platforms, effects on education and overall development, cultural and family factors, gender-based differences, rural–urban disparities, inclusion of all income groups, productivity and broader economic impacts, and a review of existing national and international frameworks for children’s digital safety.

Urgency Underlined by Demographics and Mental Health Data

The letter stated that Maharashtra has approximately 40 million children below the age of 18, of whom nearly 30 million are under the age of 15. Hence, the mental and physical well-being of children is an extremely serious issue of public importance. It also referred to findings presented at the 77th Annual National Conference of the Indian Psychiatric Society, which showed an alarming rise in mental health-related problems among young people, noting that over 50% of mental illnesses begin before the age of 18, and that the prevalence of such issues has increased significantly among those below 35 years of age, emphasizing on urgent need for preventive measures.

According to the economic survey, the safe internet guideline for schools and framework for screen-time planning for digital education will aid in balancing the children’s digital consumption.

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