India’s digital initiatives are based on use of technology that is affordable, inclusive and transformative. The Digital India programme aims to transform India into a knowledge based economy and a digitally empowered society, writes Prem Narayan, Deputy Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Read More: http://bit.ly/2sVzjEX

1. POLICYMAKER’S PERSPECTIVE
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Prem Narayan
Deputy Director General, Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
India’s digital initiatives are based on use of technology
that is affordable, inclusive and transformative. The Digital
India programme aims to transform India into a knowledge
based economy and a digitally empowered society, writes
Prem Narayan, Deputy Director General, Unique
Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
How Data and IT are
Changing the Face of
Digital India
I
n 21st century, Information
Technology (IT) is not just a vertical
anymore but part and parcel of
every person’s daily life. It has been
defined as the century of advancement
of and application of IT which act as a
change agent in different aspects of
business and society.
The Indian IT sector is divided into four
segments- IT services, software and
engineering services, business process
management (BPM), and hardware. The
IT-BPM sector is expected to
contribute more than 45 percent in
total services export.
India’s digital initiatives are based on
use of technology that is affordable,
inclusive and transformative. The
Digital India programme aims to
transform India into a knowledge based
economy and a digitally empowered
society. India is truly in lift-off phase of
digital adoption, being the second
fastest digitising country amongst a set
of 17 emerging and mature digital
economies.
Public digital platforms like Aadhaar,
BHIM-UPI, GSTN and GeM coupled

2. POLICYMAKER’S PERSPECTIVE
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with private sector innovation have
accelerated digital adoptions in India.
The digital delivery of services has
simplified the way in which citizens
interact with government to avail
various services and has enhanced the
ease of living of the citizens.
The new and emerging technologies
are significantly impacting the
processes and aspirations in critical
sectors like agriculture, education,
health etc. the deployment of these
technologies – Artificial Intelligence,
Blockchain, Drones and Robotics, have
the potential for innovation and
immense value addition in these
sectors.
More data has been created in the past
two years than in the entire previous
history of the human race. By 2020,
about 1.7 megabytes of new
information will be created every
second of every day for every human
being on the planet. It will come from
the web, billions of phones, sensors,
payment systems, cameras, and a huge
array of other sources.
As data grows more voluminous,
distilling it and bringing it to life
through visualisation is becoming
critical to helping make data analyses
digestible for decision makers.
Visualisation is vital to meeting the
last-mile challenge of discovering value
in massive data sets, and if India is to
build a trillion-dollar digital economy, it
needs to make the discipline a national
priority. Indeed, India has launched
several initiatives to create aggregated
data portals and visualisation tools.
The government created a national
open data portal (data.gov.in) in 2012
to increase transparency in public
affairs and make data available to the
public to encourage its innovative use.
Currently, the portal offers access to
data from more than 170,000
resources, including data and
documents published by various
government departments and agencies.
The site is comparable to national
open-data platforms launched
elsewhere.
Government agencies can expand the
coverage and scope of open data and
dashboards in the future, and they can
harness data for specific applications
and use cases to improve the economic
and social lives of citizens. For example,
- Jan-Dhan financial-inclusion scheme,
Aadhaar ID cards, and mobile phones
— can be used to better target the
allocation of government subsidies.
Government agencies around the world
are achieving analytics-based impact.
Data analytics industry growth will
depend on factors such as data
availability, utility, innovation,
anonymity, and privacy. The value of
India’s data analytics industry is
projected to rise to USD 16 billion by
2025. A South American country
used machine-learning algorithms on
geospatial data to predict patterns of
disease transmission and developed
proactive measures against the Zika
virus. It allowed optimised actions by
identifying transmitter municipalities
and ensured proper assessment of all
municipalities.
Beyond the government, private-
sector enterprises in India will be
active users of data analytics and
visualisation. Companies are likely to
invest more aggressively in data and
analytics capabilities, building data
centres, cloud storage solutions, and
analytics software platforms, and in
hiring employees knowledgeable
about using data and analytics to
drive business impact. Innovating to
serve such clients will enable India’s
digital companies to evolve to
address an international need for
data-driven analytics.
In fact, India could emerge as a global
hub. The right policy framework and
adequate collaboration by
stakeholders are necessary to lay the
groundwork for the development of
new and innovative use cases to
deliver value to the government as
well as its citizens.