Leading the way for world: India's proposal for digital public infra adopted by SCO members

New Delhi, India

SCO nations have adopted India's proposal for developing digital public infrastructure (DPI), according to Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw. India continues to make significant strides aimed at expanding access to digital technologies and services like Aadhaar, Unified Payments Interface, DigiLocker, and CoWin. Indian minister Vaishnaw chaired the meeting of ICT ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member countries on Saturday where they unanimously adopted India's proposal. 

“They met today and unanimously adopted India’s proposal for developing Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) as the right way for deploying digital technology among member states,” Vaishnaw said in a statement post chairing the meeting.

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The SCO grouping includes Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and India. It also has four Observer States - Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia. Moreover, the intra-governmental body also has six Dialogue Partners namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.

According to Vaishnaw, DPI is crucial for ensuring that technology is made accessible to everybody. 

“There was also a need felt for interoperability between different systems being developed by the member states and the body recognized the need for setting up an organisation for setting common standards for interoperability of digital systems among member states,” he said.

According to information from the National Payments Cooperation of India, there were around 74 billion UPI transactions in 2022, totaling 125.94 trillion rupees. The UPI platform processed more than 38 billion transactions worth 71.54 trillion rupees in 2021. Also, 2.2 billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have already been given through CoWin, India's Covid-19 vaccination app.

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“I would urge all fellow members of SCO to assess, evaluate and adopt India Stack and benefit from this digital public infrastructure,” Vaishnaw said.

India Stack refers to a set of digital infrastructure services that have been developed by the Indian government to facilitate the delivery of various services to citizens, businesses, and other organisations.

The core components of India Stack include Aadhaar, a biometric identification system that provides a unique identification number to every Indian citizen; e-KYC, which allows individuals and businesses to electronically verify their identity; and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which is a real-time payment system that enables instant transactions between bank accounts.

Together, these components provide a digital foundation that can be leveraged by various organisations to offer a range of services, such as e-commerce, financial services and healthcare, among others.

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The aim of India Stack is to create a more efficient and inclusive digital economy in India, while also reducing the cost and complexity of delivering services. The system has been credited with enabling greater financial inclusion and helping to bring more people into the formal economy.

According to a statement from the ministry, India also informed SCO members of its plans to invest $5 billion to provide broadband access to all 250,000 village councils and $3 billion to offer mobile coverage to villages in rural locations.

Kazim Rizvi, the founder of the Dialogue, a technological think tank, one of the main outputs of the India Stack is UPI, which has altered the country's payments system and increased the measure of financial inclusion by 5% compounded annual growth rate.

“The export of UPI to other countries has grown significantly, with the international arm of NPCI partnering with countries such as the UK, the UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bhutan, Nepal, etc.,” Rizvi added. 

“The recent signature by SCO member states to adopt India’s proposal for developing digital public infrastructure as the way forward for deploying digital technologies in members is a significant recognition of India’s efforts towards having digitally inclusive growth at the global scale.”

India has already agreed to the implementation of UPI with more than a dozen other countries. The nation is now providing the technology to a number of nations as part of its G20 Presidency duties. Currently, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Nepal, and Bhutan accept BHIM UPI QR.