Digital public infrastructure will transform Indian economy: Nilekani

The India model likely to be adopted by 50 countries in the next 5 years.

Digital public infrastructure like Aadhaar, unified payments interface (UPI) and digilocker, will transform India from an informal, low-productivity, multiple set of micro-economies to a formal high-productivity mega economy, Chairman and Co-Founder of Infosys Nandan Nilekani said on Sunday.

“Fundamentally, India is going from an offline, informal, low productivity, multiple set of micro-economies to a single online, formal, high-productivity mega economy, a trend that will continue over next 20 years,” Nilekani said at B20 Summit, a key engagement group in G20.  

He noted that the digital public infrastructure (DPI) has led to creation of new approaches to solve society problems. “This essentially enhances the ability of the country to use digital technology at population scale to transform society,” he added.

Nilekani, also the founding chairman of UIDAI (Aadhar), said the digital public infrastructure is an innovative model for inclusive growth and is unique to India. “We think this model is unique, it's collaborative, it's equitable, and it's based on the principle that opportunity must be made available to everyone in the country, irrespective of where they are,” he said.

He said India’s DPI is gaining global recognition and the model may be replicated in 50 countries across the world in the next five years. “Now whether it's Bill Gates or whether it's the IMF, they're all recognising India's unique contribution to digital public infrastructure,” he said.  

According to Nilekani, the trio of Aadhar, KYC (Know Your Customer) and Jan-Dhan Yojana have driven financial inclusion in the country. The process began with Aadhar. “The idea was to give a digital identity to everyone and today 1.3 billion Indians have digital IDs. It provides online authentication of IDs with fingerprint, iris, OTPs, face. That system does 80 million transactions a day,” he said. 

“2016 was a seminal year, when we reached the 1 billion mark in Aadhar cards. In April 2016, the new payment system UPI was launched. In 2016, Jio was launched, and in the same year, the RBI took a decision to launch an account aggregator system,” he said.

He said UPI, which was introduced in 2016, has emerged as the world’s largest payment platform, facilitating a staggering 9.96 billion transactions each month. With a user base of 350 million, the system allows for digital payments through QR codes at approximately 50 million merchants nationwide.

He further added that the digital public infrastructure would help in the area of climate adaptation and mitigation going forward. “From individual cash transfers to those affected by climate change to managing the electric vehicle charging station grid, DPI is an approach that has many uses for the challenges we face,” he added.