Digital India – Where knowledge is strength

Amitabh Kant
About three decades ago, in the idyllic locales of Kerala, I was working in the traditional fisheries sector. In an attempt to enhance returns for fishermen who were getting a mere 20% of the market price of fish, we introduced new technology like fibreglass crafts and outboard motor and even launched beach level auctions.
However the greatest challenge which persisted was to open bank accounts for fishermen in order to streamline payments. In those days, it would take us a minimum of ten months to chase physical banks and manage to register a single account holder. Know Your Customer was an alien concept.
Cut to 2021, you can walk into a bank branch and open a bank account in moments with eKYC and biometrics. Reducing the waiting time from months to minutes, digital transformation has truly enabled a paradigm shift.
Marking six years of the Digital India initiative, the Prime Minister has aptly described this to be India’s techade. Technological advancement and the rapid penetration of internet hasintegrated over one billion citizens across India into a common financial, economic and digital ecosystem. With the cheapest data rates in the world and close to 700 million internet users–every 3 seconds a new Indian user joins the internet.
The Union Cabinet has just approved implementation of BharatNet through Public Private Partnership in sixteen States with official fibre connectivity to all inhabited villages.
With over a billion plus biometrics, a billion plus mobiles and almost a billion bank accounts, we have built the largest identification system in the world mapping the entire population of India. Till date, 1.29 Billion Aadhar IDs have been generated and 55.97 billion authentications have been carried out.
 Bridging the gap between the Government and citizens has become the bed rock of India’s digitization efforts.
A payment system that connects millions of Indians spanning across the coast of Gujarat to the farmlands of Uttar Pradesh and the mountains of Sikkim, there is tremendous opportunity to make UPI a global and scalable architecture for digital payments. From powering a large corporate to empowering a vegetable seller, India’s stellar success story in facilitating quick, real time mobile payments has left the world awestruck.
In June 2021, UPI recorded 2.8 billion transactions worth Rs 5.47 trillion. UPI now has more than double the number of transactions that American Express does globally. Recently, Google wrote to the US Federal Reserve, applauding the successful implementation of UPI in India, and recommended the Federal Reserve System of USA to draw inspiration from India.
A notable innovation in the Digital India landscape has been the launch of a G2B (Government To Business)  Government e-Marketplace. The GeM portal has successfully leveraged technology to transform the public procurement landscape. So far, the portal has crossed the 19.17 lakh seller registration milestone, about 5 times the number of sellers from last year.
Tribal jewellery from Jharkhand, dry fruit from Kashmir, dance lessons from Chennai, textiles from Odisha – the intersection of e-commerce and internet have created a robust ecosystem for Indian products and businesses to thrive in. The internet has been the greatest enabler for millions of Indians to scale their passion and produce into businesses and interact with customers globally.
Two key sectors that have received a massive impetus under the Digital India programme are health and education. These are crucial for improving the overall quality of lives of Indian citizens and describe a holistic growth trajectory.
(To be contd)