Over 20 services to be added to Digital Public Infrastructure, says Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar

India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), the India Stack, has gained attention and interest from around the world due to its innovative approach to addressing challenges such as identity verification, financial inclusion, and provision of digital services. Even a Digital India Experience Zone has been set up at the G20 summit venue to provide delegates a hands-on experience of the DPI and showcase the success of the digital transformation implemented in India at significant population scale. Amidst all these developments, the government is now working towards integrating over 20 new services in the DPI.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State, Ministry of Electronics & IT told Business Today, “It’s Prime Minister’s vision that there will be no part of the government that will be left without being digitalised. So, effectively, you will see DPI is now spanning the entire spectrum of current government public services and anything that we are planning in the future. So, it may be shocking for you to hear or surprising depending on which way you are inclined. But I think there will be at least about 20 to 30 new applications that will pile up on the India DPI that will be addressing different slivers of the Public Service stack that is the India Stack or India DPI.”

There is keen interest among many developing nations to adopt the complete India Stack, and some developed nations, too, are looking at adopting parts of the stack. Just recently, India signed eight memoranda of understanding with countries such as Armenia, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Antigua, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Papua New Guinea and Mauritius, offering them the India Stack and digital public infrastructure (DPI) at no cost and with open-source access.

Speaking on the interest in India Stack, Chandrasekhar said: “We have about eight countries that are signed in with us today for DPI. The interest is so deep that we can sign with another 30 countries. But we certainly are not sitting with a ready-made talent pool or developer ecosystem that can support all of this at the same time. We are working with these eight countries initially, and building the developer ecosystem in India, building the scaling capabilities in India for helping not just implement this stack or console technology or the India API, but at the same time helping their own ecosystem.”

India Stack’s success story was echoed at the recent B20 submit in New Delhi where Nandan Nilekani, Chairman and Co-Founder, Infosys and Founding Chairman, UIDAI (Aadhaar) stated how DPI India has achieved in 9 years India what would have taken 47 years by traditional means.

It is India’s digital transformation over the last several years that has made a huge difference and created a whole new model of economic growth. The intervention of technology has created digital public infrastructure for delivery of important services to Indian citizens, from identity to financial inclusion, targeted benefits to the most vulnerable to digital education and healthcare, government services and more. 

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