India's digital public infrastructure being offered to other countries as part of G20: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

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India's digital public infrastructure (DPI) which includes technology stack such as Aadhaar, the unified payments interface and others has been garnering international recognition with several countries adopting similar approaches to modernise their public services and governance.

India's DPI has helped transfer $400 billion or Rs 29 lakh crore of benefits to beneficiaries in the last five years. It has also played a part in boosting India's GDP. Earlier, according to the government, while the percentage of the digital economy in the total GDP of India used to be 3.5 percent, now it is almost 10 percent.

Taking these achievements into consideration, various countries have adopted similar technologies, including Nigeria, the Philippines, Ghana and Kenya. Recently, the government also released a framework that aims at facilitating the adoption of India's DPI in other countries.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, "PM Narendra Modi ji has made India the pre-eminent country in the world to use technology to transform citizens’ lives and governance. With many tech applications such as DPIs that make up India Stack, these platforms played a very big role in India's fight during the recent Covid-19 pandemic."

"These DPIs built as open source apps are being offered by India during its G20 presidency to any country that also aspires to digitise governance and public services," Chandrasekhar said.

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During the recent Global DPI Summit in Pune, the government also signed memoranda of understanding with four countries — Armenia, Sierra Leone, Suriname and Antigua — on sharing India Stack. Apart from that, reports said member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) also supported the adoption of India's DPI.

"DPI has become centre stage. All countries have realised the importance that digital technologies play in their economy and ensuring services to citizens in ensuring inclusion; that digital technologies have become mainstream in everyday life and more so in governance and administration," Abhishek Singh, president and CEO of the National e-Governance Division and managing director and CEO of Digital India Corporation told Moneycontrol.

"Digital public infrastructure, whether it's in healthcare, education, agriculture, skilling or in logistics, is playing a transformational role across the world. So more and more countries are wanting to adopt it—whether it's for identity solutions or financial inclusion or document management, there is a greater demand from countries around the globe to do that. And more so from the global south, because they are also facing similar problems," Singh added.

Also read: UPI will be key to accelerating India’s economy: NPCI CEO

In that context, Singh explained that there has been a greater interest in India's contribution to DPI. "What we have done has become like an example for the world," he said.

However, minor challenges remain as more and more countries express their interest in adopting India's DPI. They include figuring out mechanisms of replicating these solutions; how to fund such projects; identifying the right institutions in these countries to drive adoption of these solutions; and ensuring the right architecture, experts explained.

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