Republic Economic Summit | How India's digital boom propels our country as a world leader

In le-up to first-ever Republic 'India Economic Summit', which will see most influential names in industry and economic world come toger to put world's fastest-growing major economy under microscope, Republic World is taking an in-depth look into some of its key drivers. Today we look into how digital space is shaping India, how it is impacting lives of its citizens and how Digital is future.

Data boom

One of India's prime leverage points has always been its numbers. India's data consumption continues to boom and to support it, country boasts of one of  cheapest data rates in world. At an average cost of $0.68 per gigabyte (GB), India is well below global aggregate of $4.21/ GB. ditionally, India has  highest mobile data consumption rate at 12GB per user a month in world.  numbers not only help India emerge as a thriving ground to launch digital initiatives but in turn, give reality to PM Narendra Modi's ambitious Digital India vision. 

How India's smartphone penetration has given a boost to digital literacy

Statistics show that India ds nearly 25 million new smartphone users every quarter. If we just look at se numbers in  time frame of pandemic (2020-21), we see how India's smartphone usage has boomed.  Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Rural, released in November, details penetration of digital literacy in rural areas, largely driven by purchase of smartphones.

According to report, in pandemic alone, purchase of smartphones in households with children doubled and at least 27.9% of households in rural India bought a new smartphone for ir children’s education this year. In 2018, pre-pandemic year, 36.5% of children h a smartphone available at home. This number doubled to 67.6% in 2021.

Government's Digital India mission

'Digital India Mission' is perhaps one of most ambitious projects launched under Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government. project dubbed as 'a transformative idea' aims to pull toger many existing schemes and restructure m to reach innovative solutions. In line with this, several initiatives have been undertaken, some during COVID pandemic, that has proved to be trailblazing for nation.

revolution largely started with 'JAM' trinity-  initiative to link Jan Dhan accounts, mobile numbers and Ahaar cards of Indians to plug leakages of government subsidies. Turning out to be world's largest national identification project, program helped ensure easy access to financial services, banking savings, remittance, credit, insurance and pension and several or initiatives of government.

Similarly, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was used through  Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) apps which helped make payment transactions simple, easy and quick. This enabled direct bank-to-bank payments and collection of money simply using a Mobile number or Payment dress.

birth of CoWIN app - central government's web portal for tracking of COVID-19 vaccination and its registration - is a great success story to tell. Similarly, Aarogya Setu, which is a "contact tracing, syndromic mapping, and self-assessment" digital service, helped government reign in spre of infections in small pockets and large cities, solely through records inputted digitally.

latest scheme to join Digital India Mission is Prhan Mantri Digital Health Mission (PM-DHM). initiative focuses on organisation of a citizen's health records on a digital platform to ease access to healthcare services. longitudinal exchange of health records will be facilitated through a health ID for every citizen which will have its own unique code like Ahaar card.