Nasscom & Arthur D Little 2024 Report on India's DPI Journey
Nasscom & Arthur D Little 2024 Report on India's DPI Journey
- India's digital transformation, initiated with Aadhaar in 2009, has revolutionized citizen interaction and service delivery, moving towards a digitally empowered society.
- Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has evolved beyond Aadhaar, catalyzing innovations like UPI, fostering economic growth, and promoting financial inclusion across public and private sectors.
- The DPI model's core principles—open APIs, interoperability, and consent-based frameworks—have allowed India to condense decades of progress into a fraction of the time.
- Matured DPIs, including Aadhaar, UPI, and FASTag, have significantly impacted India's GDP, with potential to create more economic and social value by 2030 by leveraging AI, Web3, and other technologies.
- Several countries are adopting or discussing implementing Indian DPIs to address challenges in financial inclusion, governance, and service delivery.
Nasscom & Arthur D Little 2024 Report on India's DPI Journey
@amitranjan4 months ago
Accelerating India's Digital Inclusion
- Over the past decade, India has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world and is set to become the 3rd largest in the world before the end of this decade. 1.
- This massive economic transformation has been powered by digital public infrastructure (DPIs) that have facilitated the development of necessary government services & platforms and these in turn have powered market innovations in both public and private sectors, and enabled creation of inclusive ecosystems. 2.
- India's DPI foundational stack has been built on 3 core guiding principles- they have open APIs, are interoperable and based on consent, and consist of 3 layers based on identity, payments and data which have facilitated the development of necessary government services & platforms. Private players have also participated by building business models using some of these DPIs. The foundation of DPIs is based on the underlying principle of trust on the infrastructure and stakeholders.
- â To analyse the impact of DPIs on India's economy, Arthur D. Little has designed a 'Maturity Framework' built on components such as - Recency, Indirect benefits, Direct benefits in transaction value and volume, Total Addressable Market (TAM), and reach of each DPI as a % of TAM.
- â When evaluated methodically, there is a clear clustering of 'matured digital entities' with successful mass adoption and larger economic impact & 'budding digital entities' with successful proofs of concept and ready for mass adoption.
- â We estimate matured digital entities (Aadhaar, UPI & FASTag) to have enabled value creation of ~0.9% to India's GDP in 2022.
- â Apart from economic value add, DPIs also contribute to financial benefits, ecological benefits and process efficiencies and convenience for the citizens.
- â UPI & Aadhaar are being adopted by other countries globally to solve similar social & economic challenges. Presently, over 30 countries are either adopting or in early discussions to implement UPI, Aadhar, and Beckn in their respective countries for boosting social & financial inclusion.
Foreword
India's digital journey, beginning with Aadhaar in 2009, has been transformative. It started with addressing a fundamental problem: three out of four people in India didn't have formal identification. This meant they had limited access to basic services like opening a bank account or getting a SIM card. Aadhaar was our first step, but the journey evolved into something much bigger.
It was about creating a digital identity system that empowered individuals to authenticate their identity easily and securely, wherever they were. This evolution wasn't just about technology, it was about reimagining how we interact with and within our digital ecosystem.
The move from traditional ID methods to a comprehensive digitized system marked a significant shift. It required the collective efforts of the public and private sectors working together. The pace at which India achieved this milestone has been remarkable, condensing decades of progress into a mere fraction of the time.
The concept of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) that emerged has since grown beyond Aadhaar. It has become a catalyst for further innovations, with platforms like UPI and the growth in digital finance just scratching the surface of what's possible.
The nasscom-Arthur D. Little report titled 'Digital Public Infrastructure of India - Accelerating India's Digital Inclusion' is a great summary of the journey so far, the impact these DPIs have had, and will have on the economy. I'm excited by the fact that many multilateral development agencies have adopted the mission of 50 in 5 i.e., 50 countries adopting DPI in 5 years.
What excites us most about DPIs is not the technology itself but what it enables people to do. This digital journey is about transforming challenges into opportunities and leveraging technology to empower people. And this is only the beginning, and the path ahead is filled with promise!
Nandan Nilekani
Co-Founder & Chairman of Infosys Technologies Limited
Founding Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
Foreword
The world has witnessed India's massive transformation over the last several years, driven by digital revolution at the core of its economic growth, with a vision to make India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. India is leapfrogging from offline, informal, low-productivity to a single, online, formal, highproductivity mega economy.
The foundation of this digital revolution has been strengthened by the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPIs) or India Stack, enhancing the ability of the country to use digital technologies at a population scale to change the society. DPIs form the cornerstone to shape this 'tech-ade' and ultimately drive the 'India@47' growth path.
The DPI model is unique, interoperable, collaborative, equitable, with the inclusive principle that every citizen in the most inaccessible corner of the country has the same opportunity as everyone else.
The Nasscom-Arthur D. Little report titled 'Digital Public Infrastructure of India - Accelerating India's Digital Inclusion' is a first-of-its kind report, providing a holistic view of the Indian DPI ecosystem, analysing the past, present, and the future impact that these DPIs will have on the Indian and global economy.
Staying true to the fundamental principle of creating impact to over 1 billion Indians, the report highlights the significant contribution made by DPIs to the Indian economy. And with the maturing adoption of many of these entities, it is projected to yield substantial economic and social impact on a broader scale, creating a widespread revolution which covers every aspect of our society and economy.
India is currently the global leader in developing DPIs, using it to implement widespread adoption of digital payments, data-sharing infrastructures, bolstering domestic businesses and spurred entrepreneurship in the country. This has been due to the relentless support by the government and enabled by the IT intellectual capital and start-up ecosystem, a combination which has made DPI a success.
Not limited to India, the success of these DPIs has been gaining global recognition as well and have the capability to solve key global challenges including key UN Sustainable Development Goals, creating a lasting impact across the globe and with an aim to take this model to 50 countries in five years.
This report highlights the possibilities of the vast potential that DPIs hold in revolutionizing the entire Indian economy and the world and paints a hopeful picture of an interconnected, open, inclusive world with infinite possibilities, empowering each and everyone across the globe.
Debjani Ghosh
President, Nasscom
Satya Easwaran
Partner, Arthur D. Little
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the economic advisors for their valuable inputs.
Shri Kuntal Sensarma
Economic Adviser and Group Coordinator, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India
Arvind Mohan
Professor of Economics & Director Institute For Management Science, University of Lucknow
Mansi Kedia, PhD
Research Fellow, Indian Council For Research On International Economic Relation (ICRIER)
We would like to thank all the leaders and industry experts for sharing their valuable insights.
Dr. Pramod Varma
Chief Technology Officer, EkStep
Co-founder - FIDE Co-chair - Center for digital public infrastructure
Sujith Nair
CEO & Co-founder - FIDE Steward and Member, Core Working Group - Beckn Protocol
Ex-Chief Architect - UIDAI
Kameshwari Chandra
Chief Strategy Officer - CDPI
Executive Summary
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