India focuses on helping other nations build digital public infrastructure

Against the serene backdrop of a rainy Hampi, India kickstarted the first day of the 3rd G20 Sherpa Meeting on Thursday with a discussion between Sherpas, delegates and representatives of member and invitee nations chaired by Indian Sherpa Amitabh Kant, who stressed on the importance of adopting a digital public infrastructure to accelerate tech transformation of developing nations.

Kant highlighted the priority with which India is providing its expertise to low and middle-income nations to develop their own digital payment and unique identification systems during its G20 presidency.

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Kant said the country is focusing on how the DPI can be taken to other parts of the world and how the lives of citizens can be transformed through it.

“The digital public infrastructure is basically about layers of public infrastructure in which the private sector innovates, which are open source, open API, and are interoperable,” Kant said. Examples of this range from the Internet to GPS, digital identity systems and linking them with bank accounts, fast payments to even health and education.

While India is a pioneer in adopting a DPI through Aadhar, UPI and digilockers, there is still a vacuum in terms of what the basic definition of DPI is and what the governance infrastructure around it should be, he said.