Policy Next Karnataka Summit | Focus should be on last-mile delivery of digital services, say startup founders, investors

From L-R Chaitra Chidanand, Sanjay Swamy, Chandra R Srikanth, K Ganesh and Vivekanand Hallekere

The last-mile delivery of digital services continues to be an issue in India as companies and people still deal with tedious paperwork effectively negating the advantages of India stack and the massive adoption of digitisation, startup founders and investors argued at the Policy Next Karnataka Summit.

“I am really disappointed that our adoption of Aadhar and India stack and e-signature is nothing but treating it like a physical ID. We still take photocopies of other people, sign sideways and upside down,” said Sanjay Swamy, managing partner at Prime Venture Partners.

“That's not what it was meant to be. We have an opportunity this state is sitting here right here in Bangalore, to really showcase how a digital economy infrastructure has to be deployed,” he added.

Swamy's perspective regarding India stack and the adoption of digital services in the country differs from the common belief that India stack has been highly successful right from Aadhar, which provided unique identities to individuals to the creation of a broader range of open APIs.

Corroborating Swamy’s comments, Chaitra Chidanand, co-founder of Salt, said, “The last-mile delivery of digital services in India has just not happened. The amount of time we as co-founders have spent on stamps and signatures on document after document after document, it is just mind-blowingly insane and the amount of money we have paid to courier services.”

“If there can be some relaxation made around the need to have a CA or a CS, we would have saved lakhs of rupees,” she added.

Founders and investors also highlighted the need for the government to collaborate with startups to address and solve these last-mile delivery issues.

“Startups can solve a lot of infrastructural issues. All we expect from the government is to facilitate, cooperate and don’t stop innovation. In a lot of cases, you are banned overnight. Probably, a dialogue would be helpful to understand why the decision is taken,” said Vivekanand Hallekere, co-founder of Bounce.

Corroborating Hallekere, K Ganesh, a serial entrepreneur said that while the government appreciates and understands the need for building the startup ecosystem, it needs to figure out a way to translate it into systems. But he argued that Bengaluru’s startup ecosystem has always remained vibrant for startups.

“I have spent 25 years in Bangalore. The good part is that across different parties and coalition governments, Bangalore’s eco-system has been very startup friendly,” he said.

However, Swamy of Prime Venture Partners did not seem to be in agreement with Ganesh. He emphasised the need to improve and develop the city’s infrastructure.

“I am concerned that we are going to lose an edge over a period of time (of being the largest startup hub) if we don't address the fundamental issues. You should be able to reach your office faster,” Swamy said.

Not just Swamy, even Chidanand of Salt said, “As a start-up founder in Bangalore, what I care about is the infrastructure. I would love to see infrastructure development happen at 10x speed. I don’t know which political party delivers it and I honestly don’t care. But Bangalore needs that.”