Walking on the way to Digital India, the Indian government has been availing cloud services across multiple functions. And, on this way, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been an integral partner to the government.
Earlier this year, the two collaborated to launch a Joint Innovation Centre (JIC) to boost startups, ISVs, and SIs to leverage the power of technologies such as cloud computing, generative artificial intelligence (AI), and analytics from AWS.
Commenting on the idea to create a Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), Kanishka Agiwal, Head, Service Lines, India and South Asia said, “The idea was to make government services accessible to Indians digitally. Some of our key initiatives in partnership with the government are COWIN, DigitYatra, DigiLocker, etc. The aim is to offer cloud services as a key infrastructure for the national platforms to augment the service quality and reduce time taken to perform a task.”
However, this comes on the backdrop of multiple cyber crime and data breach cases in the country. Amid such a scenario, how are AWS and the government building trust and creating awareness across the population about the benefits of these DPIs?
Also, as per a report published by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, only 38% of households in India are digitally literate. In urban areas, digital literacy is relatively higher at 61% as compared to just 25% in rural areas. So, what is the user count of such services across the smaller towns and rural areas?
Interestingly, Agiwal noted that some services like DigiYatra are accessed more by the urban population as air travel is majorly an urban activity. But some services like Government e Marketplace (GeM), which is national procurement platform, are availed more by the people across smaller towns as in such areas, limited market access is available.
And, commenting on the first query, he said that data on every AWS application is encrypted end-to-end. Drawing example of DigiLocker, he said that only respective government departments and the user will have access to the documents. “Unless you allow somebody to access the documents, nobody will have access to it.”
“Mass campaigning has been done by the DPI issuing government departments. At airports, you will find help desks educating people about DigiYatra application. And, on the trust building front, we believe that with time people will realise that their biometrics is used to make it safe to use.”
On Wednesday, AWS hosted its Empower India event, where Werner Vogels, chief technology officer, Amazon said, “The Frugal Architect approach offers core principles for building cost-aware, sustainable, and modern architectures, turning constraints into catalysts for innovation. I am inspired by how builders and organisations in India are poised to embrace these principles, creating innovative solutions that not only address immediate challenges but also lay the foundation for sustainable, long-term growth.”