India starts work on building a global digital public infrastructure repository

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Even as stakeholders laud the inclusion of digital public infrastructure (DPI) in the G20 Delhi Declaration, the government has already started working on building the global DPI repository, Moneycontrol has learnt.

The Delhi Declaration is a statement of the leaders of G20 countries, adopted on September 10, 2023, at the end of the summit in New Delhi. While the declaration touches upon crucial aspects regarding climate change, war in Ukraine, and so on, it also laid emphasis on the adoption of DPI to bridge the digital divide and accelerate development.

Digital public infrastructure is a set of digital technologies, including digital identification systems, digital payment networks, and so on. India's DPI includes Aadhaar, United Payments Interface, ONDC, etc.

Also read: What’s behind India's DPI push at G20?

The establishment of a global DPI repository was one of key points of the Delhi Declaration. The repository will host DPI solutions from different countries and enable their easy discoverability and adoption.

The virtual repository is being hosted on the website DPI.Global, which is under development.

According to the website, the repository, "Is aimed at addressing the existing knowledge gap around the right practices to design, build, and deploy population-scale DPI. Each participant, based on whether their DPI are built on open platforms, APIs, standards, and protocols, can choose to display any information at their discretion, which can help others develop their DPI."

"We will be driving the building of the global DPI repository — DPI.Global. It will have solutions from across the world, including India. We are working with other countries in replicating these solutions. Many countries have shown interest, and we are following up on this," Abhishek Singh, CEO of National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and Digital India Corporation, told Moneycontrol.

Also read: G20 leaders agree to discuss adoption, implications of CBDCs

Singh, who is also one of the members of the repository's leadership team, said the platform will host DPI solutions from countries beyond the G20 members, and announcements in this regard will be made in the coming days.

Apart from Singh, the leadership team includes UIDAI CEO Amit Agarwal, NPCI CEO Dilip Asbe, and NHA CEO S Gopalakrishnan.

Another stakeholder closely associated with DPI platforms explained that there already exists a repository called Digital Public Goods, funded and supported by UNDP. "It is anchored by Norway, but India's repository will be a better platform to popularise DPIs (which will help their adoption)," the stakeholder explained.

Other than the repository, G20 members have agreed upon a framework for the development, deployment, and governance of DPI under the One Future Alliance (OFA). The OFA aims to build capacity, provide funding, offer technical assistance and synergise global effort in implementing DPI in lower-middle income countries.

What India's DPI leaders said

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) CEO T Koshy lauded the inclusion of DPI in the  Delhi Declaration and said India, through DPI, has demonstrated how private entities and governments can come together to create a healthy, open market.

"India is demonstrating that it is very much possible for the government and the private sector to create the rails on top of which innovation, specialisation, and business can prosper — not by creating single monoliths, but by creating umbrellas for everything," he explained.

Former chief architect of Aadhaar Pramod Varma said that the initiative to build a global repository will be useful for various countries. "Making a global repository of open source assets that countries can share with everyone is useful. There are many countries who can choose to leverage these," he told Moneycontrol.

Former National Health Authority (NHA) CEO RS Sharma, while speaking at an event DPG Dialogues in Delhi on September 11, said, "India has rightfully taken the DPI leadership. India's DPI story began 13-14 years ago with Aadhaar. We have realised that to solve the problems in a country as diverse as India, we need something completely different. We don't need to build solutions for specific problems, we need to build an ecosystem."

Also read: As RS Sharma's tenure as NHA chief ends, tech czar plans to relax on a 'khatia', head to the fields

"Several countries have been looking at the way India has done this in multiple sectors, and made DPI popular as a platform across the world. It has demonstrated what such platforms can achieve for the public in terms of government service delivery. From Aadhaar to UPI to OCEN to ONDC, including contact tracing / validating vaccinations during Covid, countries have seen that DPI can solve a lot of issues. This can create a better experience for everyone," said the stakeholder quoted above who works closely on DPIs.