Modi praises Digital India’s DPI gains at 9-year anniversary

The Digital India program has overhauled the country’s digital public infrastructure (DPI), according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who praised the initiative’s success across domains. Digital India launched nine years ago, on July 1, 2015, with the aim of transforming India into a digital society.

“A Digital India is an empowered India, boosting ‘Ease of Living’ and transparency. This thread gives a glimpse of the strides made in a decade thanks to the effective usage of technology,” says Modi, sharing a thread on X.

The DigiLocker platform, part of the Digital India initiative, has issued over 6.74 billion documents, providing digital access to various documents such as driver’s licenses, vehicle registration certificates, and academic credentials.

The Government of India has also generated more than 1.37 billion Aadhaar numbers, which serve as unique IDs for Indians, as a digital identity.

The launch of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a significant digital achievement of the Modi government, capitalizing on the popular adoption of digital ID for user authentication. The government claims that more than 535 trillion UPI transactions have been completed to date. UPI is now a focus of India’s project to export DPI to other countries.

Some of the other digital ID cards available include the Ayushman Cards, which have been issued to over 346 million individuals. These cards are utilized for cashless healthcare benefits of up to approximately US$6000 per family per year at recognized hospitals and healthcare providers nationwide.

Moreover, the government has implemented a 683,000-kilometer-long optical fiber network, which is sufficient to encircle the Earth 17 times. The Digital India initiative is designed around three primary pillars: providing DPI as a fundamental service to all citizens, delivering governance and services on demand, and empowering citizens digitally.

Article Topics

Aadhaar  |  Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) ID  |  DigiLocker  |  digital identity  |  digital public infrastructure  |  digital stack  |  India  |  Unified Payments Interface - UPI