DPI leverages technology to achieve societal goals through a public interest-driven ecosystem. This approach combines infrastructure development with a collaborative framework that encourages responsible private sector innovation while ensuring public interest and regulatory oversight. The revolutionary impact of UPI on digital payments suggests that similar collaborative efforts can revolutionise other sectors. By extending DPI frameworks to areas like healthcare through the National Health Stack, a unified farmer database through Agri Stack and logistics through the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), we are already on the path to unlock significant innovation while ensuring affordable and accessible services on a large scale. On the other hand, Digital Public Goods (DPGs), such as the DIGIT platform, have gained significant popularity due to their customisable modules and workflows that can rapidly be rolled out. DIGIT has been chosen as the national platform for urban governance for transforming urban landscape with the goal of digitising 4,500+ ULBs by 2025.
Empowering MSMEs through Digital Integration
MSMEs’ digital integration remains pivotal to achieving broader economic goals. By connecting MSMEs to a vast network of buyers across the country, ONDC empowers them to overcome geographical limitations, reach new customers, and expand their market reach significantly. It promotes fair competition and encourages innovation within the e-commerce ecosystem. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has empowered the smallest businesses to quickly adopt digital payments with minimal upfront costs and transaction charges. Like UPI, the success of ONDC will depend on its simplicity and user-friendliness.
Strengthening and building DPIs/DPGsExpanding the footprints of the DPIs should be prioritised. For example, DigiLocker services could be further integrated with more entities and services, including corporates and MSMEs, while ensuring stringent data security measures. This would reduce the cost, time, and efforts of verifying the credentials drastically. While collaborative efforts between not-for-profit organisations and the government have established the foundations for several DPIs and DPGs, ensuring their long-term sustainability and widespread adoption may pose a challenge. To ensure continued success of these initiatives, deeper involvement of industry bodies, technology players, and start-ups is needed. Most of the DPGs have been built from scratch; however, the existing solutions funded by the government authorities can be repurposed into DPGs for widespread adoption. A few ministries/departments hold vast information that, if opened up for public and business use as a DPI, can unlock economic growth in multiple sectors.Focus on Data Privacy and Cybersecurity
As DPI scales up, ensuring data privacy and cybersecurity becomes imperative. Technology-driven solutions, such as artificial intelligence (AI)-based threat detection, access control, incident response, and data integrity systems could make the regulatory landscape stronger. This could help stay DPI resilient and secure.
Leveraging AI
The Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure underlines that seamless integration of DPI with AI can usher in a new era of “Digital Public Intelligence.” DPI can facilitate the creation and sharing of open-source AI tools and libraries, driving collaboration and innovation within the AI community. DPI can play a meaningful role in establishing ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks for the development and deployment of AI, ensuring fairness, transparency, accountability, and safety.
Global Collaboration
India’s G20 presidency underscored its leadership in advocating for inclusive digital growth. Building on this momentum, the upcoming Budget on February 1, 2025, should emphasise global collaborations in technology development, share India’s DPI success stories, such as UPI and Aadhaar, and assist LMICs in the adoption of the DPIs and DPGs. Enhancing diplomatic partnerships to co-develop digital solutions could further cement India’s role as a global digital powerhouse. India’s efforts in showcasing its own DPIs/DPGs such as MOSIP and IndiaStack to other nations at various international platforms will strengthen our global collaborations.
Dedicated DPI Funds
The G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure emphasised that securing funding is crucial for developing and maintaining effective DPI. This involves creating a sustainable financial plan and dedicated DPI funds that ensure access to necessary resources. There is a need to earmark funds to co-develop digital public infrastructure projects with private entities, particularly in sectors such as health, agriculture, education and rural development. By providing grants or incentives to those working on DPI/DPG-aligned projects, the Budget can encourage innovation at scale.
Conclusion
The Union Budget 2025-2026 has the potential to drive India’s DPI into a new era of innovation, inclusivity, and sustainability. By addressing challenges while fostering innovation through public-private collaborations, the government can position India as a leader in DPI on the global stage. A forward-looking Budget, aligned with these priorities, will not only enhance service delivery and economic growth but also pave the way for a more equitable and sustainable digital future.
Amit Singh is Partner, Deloitte India.
