Early efforts at digitization in government were largely government focused: how to improve efficiency, record keeping and data storage and processing especially in number crunching departments like finance (treasuries), taxation (Commercial taxes, Income Tax, Excise), Statistics, etc. Substantial efforts and progress were seen in departments that dealt with large numbers of beneficiaries like rural development, PDS, etc. These efforts were largely spread over a couple of decades during 1976-1996 and almost entirely based on National Informatics Centre (NIC) support, barring a couple of state like Andhra Pradesh where NIC efforts were augmented by state technology organizations like APTS.

Background:

• It was in 1997 that the first steps towards a citizen focused e-governance program were taken, initially in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
• The next decade saw the emergence of several e-governance initiatives in diverse areas like land records, transportation, land registration, urban local bodies, PDS, etc. at the state level and Income Tax, Excise and MCA at the national level.
• Towards the end of this period, State Wide Area Networks were created under a scheme funded by the Central Government
• Some of these projects were implemented in a PPP mode, thereby drawing the country’s technology industry into the nation-wide effort and opening new approaches to rapid deployment of comprehensive e-governance solutions.
• These sporadic, but highly visible initiatives were widely appreciated and hailed as truly path breaking changes in systems of governance in the country.
• The foundation for a comprehensive National e-Governance plan had been laid through these efforts.
• Approval of SWAN project and early discussion at the highest levels of Government on the contours of a National e-Governance Plan took place in 2003.
• The efforts culminated in the approval of the National e-Governance Plan and the game-changing Common Services Centres project in 2006 by the Union Cabinet. Thereafter, steady progress was made across the country.
• During 2004-2013, some of the more ambitious projects like UID, Passport Seva, MCA-21 were initiated.
• Developments in the telecom sector unfolded at a staggering, globally unprecedented pace.
• Telecom subscribers increased exponentially, broadband coverage was expanding and National Optical Fibre Network (Later named as Bharat Broadband) was launched.
• Smartphone coverage grew rapidly as did social media usage.

Potential of Digital Economy:

• The Aadhaar project was taken to its logical conclusion by a vigorous drive, the JAM program benefitting people from financial inclusion through bank accounts and direct benefits transfer (DBT).
• Linkage of mobile telephone and bank accounts with Aadhaar (recently barred by the Supreme Court) gave Government and business the ability to deal with a vast population individually and without leakage caused by non-value adding intermediaries
• The CSC program has expanded to 2,50,000 panchayats and now provides employment to nearly a million people in the rural heartland.
• Global developments in technology have led to the emergence and use at scale of enormously powerful, highly affordable, almost infinitely scalable disruptive technologies like Social Media, Mobile, (Data) Analytics, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, 3-D printing, etc.
• The India IT industry had also grown from strength to strength and had become a 150 billion dollar behemoth that was globally respected and often, envied.

Digital Services Delivery:

• Global Products like IBM Watson already provide a range of medical services across countries including treatment recommendations based on patients’ records. But within India, well known products in healthcare such as Practo, Portea, Lybrate, etc. are connecting doctors and medical professionals to patients in ways that make it easy to reach the right person from the comfort of your home.
• Apps like BYJU’S are making high quality educational content and services easily accessible at highly affordable costs.
• Similar established products albeit in smaller numbers exist in the agriculture sector too.
• There are more new exciting efforts in the pipeline in social sectors like healthcare, agriculture, fintech/financial inclusion that hold the promise of scripting India’s future riding on the back of and reinforcing the Digital India program.

TIDBITS:

• Medicea Technology Solutions is building a tech driven pharmaceutical distribution business with next generation anti-counterfeit technology using private block chain.
• Artoo has built an intelligent lending system specifically designed for Micro Enterprise lending.
• Dheeyantra has built a product that enables vernacular interactions and engagement with end customers using AI and NLP.
• Inform DS Technologies has built Doxper, an AI powered product that enables doctors to instantly digitize prescriptions and clinical notes using a digital pen and encoded paper.
• Krishi Hub is a free AI-powered mobile app that enables farmers to make data-driven decisions and supports 8 local languages and is currently being used across 17 states.
• Deep Mind mines through medical records, analyses digital scans of the eye to diagnose eye disease.

AI and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) are transforming health care. Similar transformation in the agriculture sector through technology interventions that enable precisions farming, early warning of pest attack in cotton farming for example, are available through AI-powered systems to lower risks and costs while increasing productivity. It is interventions like these and hundreds of other such innovations that are going to help deliver desired outcomes like doubling farmers’ incomes, health coverage for the poor through Ayushman Bharat and similar programs.

Challenges:

It needs to be recognized that these exciting trends should not be taken to mean that progress is assured. Regulatory facilitation and debottlenecking by Government are critical across sectors for rapid progress necessary for full realization of the potential Examples abound.

 Business Challenges:

• These could be the Pacing problem i.e a slow pace of regulations may become irrelevant very soon while a regulation released early may discourage innovation. Another issue that is of importance is the disruptive business models wherein the new businesses may require intervention/regulation by multiple regulators.

Technological Challenges:

• Issues related to Data, Digital Privacy and Security, Data Ownership AI-based challenges etc. One of the major challenges in the telecom sector today is to simultaneously regulate the legacy as well as the new digital networks.

Other Challenges:

• Map Policy of the country was an impediment to growth of location-based services.
• Lack of a drone policy hindered the use of drones and growth of a drone services eco-system in the country.
• Even as laws and regulations on data privacy are formulated, there needs to be a balance to ensure that innovation is not stifled by unduly restrictive regulation.
• The recent Supreme Court Judgement on Aadhaar appears to bar use of Aadhaar by the private sector even with the consent of a citizen, thereby constricting opportunities for innovative, convenient services in many areas.
• Conservative regulations in healthcare that disallow remote treatment by doctors are retarding the growth of commercial eco-systems in this field.

Way forward:

India is well on its way to becoming a fountainhead of frugal innovation for the globe by creating services in various areas, but more importantly in the social sector, by leveraging new, disruptive technologies. The new era requires speed in thought, in action, in governance and regulatory changes. While all of these developments are hugely encouraging and give rise to well-founded optimism about the future of India’s digital economy (IT), the path is not easy.

Availability, power and affordability of technology are no longer the limitation. It is our imagination and our ability to assimilate them into the ordinary tasks of everyday life, normal business and governance. Equally, it is well-recognized that the power of technologies has grown at a pace far exceeding our ability to leverage them in key social sectors. There are many, many more examples of policy and regulation which needs to be tweaked to enable and not retard Digital India.

TID-BITS:

India Surges 23 Ranks in Ease of Doing Business with Port-led Development under Sagarmala:

• As per the World Bank report 2019 on Ease of Doing Business, India has taken a huge leap of 23 ranks from 100 in 2017-18 to 77 in 2018-19 indicating it is continuing its steady shift towards global standards.
• One of the key indices which has contributed immensely toward this growth is ‘Trading across borders’ which shows an impressive improvement from 146 rank last year to 80th rank this year.
• The Ministry of Shipping has been taking initiatives to improve the parameter of ‘Trading across border’ as 92% of India’s Export-Import trade by volume is handled at ports.
• The report mentions that this is mainly due to India’s continued reform agenda, which has made it the top-ranked economy in the region.
• Upgradation of port infrastructure, improvement of processes, and digitization of document submission has substantially reduced Export/Import cargo handling time at ports which has significantly contributed towards improving the trading across border parameter and India’s impressive growth in the World Bank’s report.
• The World Bank has recognized India as one of the top improvers for the year.