India’s Frontiers of Digital Edges Digital ID Management and Implications to Sustainable Development and Broad-Based Socio-Economic Empowerment Aadhaar: Biometric ID system that transforms India's long-run sustainable growth development narrative, considering four following premises at today’s transition: • Represent as key growth enabler at today's transition: Built with greater shared ambition in substantiation of the national digitalization initiative, and thereby winning collective effort across public and private sectors, but also civil societies and academia, especially in transitioning the existing socio-economic system by leveraging digital empowerment; • Harness strategic leverage of socio-economic inclusion: Intended also to achieve greater sustainability impact across the economy and the society, primarily by improving efficiency and effectiveness of key social programs (such as, cash and in-kind transfer), but also served as enabler toward stronger uptake from suitable ranges of digital financial services, therefore greater and more opportunities to the vulnerable population segments with currently limited access to the banking/financial sectors; • Mutually reinforce agglomeration impact from the ground up: Multiplied and resonated on the premise of such narrative, broad-based digital economy and society further also provide conducive and enabling environments for social and economic innovation particularly across urban areas, where capacity to innovation has strong potential to find reciprocal traction with scale and scope, therefore likelihood to transcend new ideas with reinforcing impact in socio-economic transformation at the transition; • Establish the Fundamentals for Future Structural Reform: Served as strategic governance tools in addressing structural challenges in India's growth dynamics notably in strengthening accountability and transparency in key sustainable policy agenda (citizen’s digital identities as enablers in empowerment dialogs from health and education to political participation), while also leveraging the same governance structure in improvement of rational decision on the ground, notably as forward-looking pathways for future structural reform — all on the premise of participative democracy.

1. Bangkok, Thailand / Page 1 (2) Edition: April 22, 2022
India’s Frontiers of Digital Edges
Digital ID Management and Implications to Sustainable Development and
Broad-Based Socio-Economic Empowerment
Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Sloan Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Aadhaar: Biometric ID system that transforms India's long-run sustainable growth
development narrative, considering four following premises at today’s transition:
• Represent as Key Growth Enabler at Today's Transition: Built with
greater shared ambition in substantiation of the national digitalization
initiative, and thereby winning collective effort across public and private
sectors, but also civil societies and academia, especially in transitioning
the existing socio-economic system by leveraging digital empowerment¹;
• Harness Strategic Leverage of Socio-Economic Inclusion: Intended
also to achieve greater sustainability impact across the economy and the
society, primarily by improving efficiency and effectiveness of key social
programs (such as, cash and in-kind transfer), but also served as enabler
toward stronger uptake from suitable ranges of digital financial services,
therefore greater and more opportunities to the vulnerable population
segments with currently limited access to the banking/financial sectors²;
• Mutually Reinforce Agglomeration Impact from the Ground Up:
Multiplied and resonated on the premise of such narrative, broad-based
digital economy and society further also provide conducive and enabling
environments for social and economic innovation particularly across urban
areas, where capacity to innovation has strong potential to find reciprocal
traction with scale and scope, therefore likelihood to transcend new ideas
with reinforcing impact in socio-economic transformation at the transition;
• Establish the Fundamentals for Future Structural Reform: Served as
strategic governance tools in addressing structural challenges in India's
growth dynamics notably in strengthening accountability and transparency
in key sustainable policy agenda (citizen’s digital identities as enablers in
empowerment dialogs from health and education to political participation),
while also leveraging the same governance structure in improvement of
rational decision on the ground, notably as forward-looking pathways for
future structural reform — all on the premise of participative democracy³.

2. S. Treetasanatavorn. India’s Frontiers of Digital Edges
Edition: April 22, 2022 Bangkok, Thailand / Page 2 (2)
References (in appearance order):
1. See top-level summary of the program at the World Bank Group (2013):
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/video/2013/04/24/the-science-of-delivering-on-
line-ids-for-a-billion-people-the-aadhaar-experience
2. See discussion of financial inclusion in this context from the example of open banking
at the International Monetary Fund/IMF (2021):
https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/001/2021/052/001.2021.issue-052-
en.xml
3. See broader implications of the Aadhaar system at the ongoing complex transition at
the Economist (2017): https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/04/12/indias-id-system-
is-reshaping-ties-between-state-and-citizens