Building a Brilliant India of the Future

For many years, India was termed as the land of snake charmers – a lens put on by the colonialism era. As a legacy of this lens, in the western world, the mention of India evoked images of heat, dust, disease and crumbling infrastructure. India has shattered this lens. Today India is a technologically advanced, digitally equipped, rapidly expanding manufacturing hub. India has made exceptional strides in economic as well as welfare-oriented reforms. It has positioned itself as a new age nation, well prepared to ascend the global stage and rub shoulders with developed nations and lead the cause of developing nations. We are laying a strong foundation for India to be a future facing developed nation by 2047, the hundredth year of Indian independence from colonial rule.

Years ago, I was working in the traditional fisheries sector in the south Indian coastal state of Kerala. My job was to enhance the returns of local fishermen who were getting a mere 20% of the market price of fish. The biggest challenge we faced was to open bank accounts for fishermen. Back then. no such process as “Know Your Customer” existed in India. It took us ten months of chasing physical banks and bank managers to get basic paperwork in place. India has come a long, long way since then. Today, one can walk into a bank outlet and open a bank account using biometric authentication in one minute flat. From ten months to one minute has been the stunning paradigm shift designed by Indian policymakers.

According to the global index report released by the World Bank a whopping 55% of all bank accounts created across the world during 2014-17 were opened in India. Of the 470 million bank accounts opened under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s brainchild Pradhan Mantry Jan Dhan Yojana around 55% are held by women. The vast coverage of these Jan Dhan accounts has also provided a key impetus to India’s extensive adoption of digital payment modes such as the United Payments Interface and debit cards, with 31 crore RuPay cards now been issued. This is almost 30 percent of the total number of debit and credit cards in circulation in India, with the number crossing one billion recently.

In 2011, the Reserve Bank of India had released findings which stated that in India only six non-cash transactions took place every year for every individual with access to banking. Fast forward to 2022, with the size and scale of entire continents, real time digital transactions in India stood at a staggering 49 billion. This number is three times the number of transactions in China and almost seven times the number in USA, UK, Canada & Europe put together. The launch of the United Payments Interface (UPI) in 2016 has triggered into motion a burgeoning digital payments ecosystem in India. According to the RBI, digital payments have grown at an impressive CAGR of 55% over the last five years. Today, retail payments small and large can be initiated by simply scanning a QR code, enabling safe and secure transactions in even the remotest parts of the country.

In October 2022 only, India clocked 730 crore digital transactions worth INR 12.11 lakh crores, the highest ever. India’s approach to digital platforms has been unique. We are creating platforms where government creates the brick and mortar of the foundational layer with startups and innovative enterprises building interfaces and layers on top. The effort has been to break silos through real-time governance and move away from case to case approach to systematic governance with meaningful participation of stakeholders. These are next generational visionary reforms.

Today India undertakes a cumulative direct benefit transfer of almost 26 lakh crores. Direct benefit transfer and governance reforms have increased the government’s efficiency to reach needy beneficiaries directly. During the pandemic, this robust network of direct benefit transfers enabled the provision of immediate relief to millions. Aadhar – the largest biometric unique identification system in the world is considered to be one of the most advanced and sophisticated technological innovations by India. The e-KYC process enabled by Aadhar is paperless, cost efficient and secure and also reduced KYC costs dramatically from INR 100 per to less than INR 10 per person. The linkage of Aadhar and mobile connectivity to bank accounts opened under the Jan Dhan Yojana proved to be a game changer for the government to provide subsidies to the poor through cashless direct benefits transfers.

The countries best able to capitalize on the technologies of the time can leapfrog into a new era of growth and prosperity. Technology must not only be applied or utilized in commercial settings. The power of technology in ensuring good governance has been on display in the past few years. The power of platforms has come to the fore. Digital infrastructure has now become indispensable for society. The next generation technologies, such as AI, cloud computing, IoT and block chain amongst others are all based on a digital backbone. Moving forward, India is poised to invest in sunrise sectors of growth – genomics, AI, clean and connected mobility, green hydrogen and advance cell chemistry, space technology amongst others. These emerging areas of growth being navigated by entrepreneurs will catalyse economic growth, augmenting quality of life and raise ease of living.

By 2047, we expect India to play a defining role in the emerging new world order. From a geopolitical perspective India’s transition to become a large world power is not going to be without opposition. In looking towards 2047, we must keep in mind the changing nature of the battlefield. New forms of kinetic (autonomous vehicles, drones) and non-kinetic warfare (cyber warfare, informational warfare) are coming up, which we will to be prepared for. Leveraging technological expertise from corporates, startups and educational institutes will be key in being future ready.

India is prioritizing the need to industrialise without the need to ‘carbonise’. This is certainly a challenge, but also an opportunity. This is where India has an advantage. We have successfully built a globally competitive renewable energy industry. India is well placed to lead the global green hydrogen story. With proactive collaboration between innovators, entrepreneurs and government, green hydrogen has the potential to drastically reduce CO2 emissions and reduce energy imports. We are investing in R&D in clean technologies such as batteries, solar panels, electrolysers, green steel, amongst others. India’s commitment to climate action has also been bolstered by the launch of LiFE, a movement which seeks to democratise the fight against climate change globally.

In my view, the best examples of the reformistic zeal of the Indian government was demonstrated by two key social programmes – the Swach Bharat Mission and Ayushman Bharat. Both of them have gone beyond being mere government schemes and have become the shared vision of the entire nation. The former is an immensely successful nationwide campaign to make India open defecation free and improve solid waste management across the country. The mission not only lay emphasis on the construction of toilets but focused on behavioural change and outcomes as well. It succeeded because of strong political will and Prime Minister’s Modi’s personal commitment.

Out of pocket healthcare expenses which are catastrophic used to push nearly 6.6 million households of India into poverty every year. The Ayushman Bharat scheme through 1,50,000 health and wellness centres is shifting the focus of healthcare provision towards providing primary healthcare to its citizens. It is the largest publicly funded health insurance scheme providing insurance to 500 million beneficiaries and leverages facilities in public and private hospitals. It has been a remarkable policy success story in India.

Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January 2018, the Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) seeks to improve socio-economic outcomes by reimagining governance, vesting greater ownership and accountability in the local administrations, facilitating convergence and collaboration among stakeholders, tracking of performance indicators on a real-time basis as well as engaging citizens to contribute to the development process. Since its launch, 112 underdeveloped districts included in the programme have significantly improved their performance on development parameters. The Prime Minister changed the development narrative by referring to backward districts as ‘aspirational’ instead of ‘backward’. By doing so, he ensured that no district in the country was left behind in the journey towards development for all.

Given India’s size and diversity, it is crucial that states and districts have a greater say in their own development. This is the crux of competitive federalism. Moreover, local challenges differ significantly across the country. State and local governments are therefore best positioned to recognise their development challenges, and design customised policy interventions. This move is grounded in evidence which shows that devolution of resources and responsibilities to lower levels of government can lead to better governance of facilities in the public sector, higher use of public services and greater achievement of desired socio-economic outcomes.

India has been a melting pot of pluralism over millennia, with a vibrant heritage of soft power. It has been the birthplace of major religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism and home to a multiplicity of cultural beliefs and practices. In recent years, the benefits of traditional Indian practices like Yoga and Ayurveda have been sampled and greatly appreciated by the world. As the largest democracy in the world, India’s diversity is a great asset and drawing from this the theme of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (One Earth, One Family, One Future) was conceptualised.

Indias’s rich culture, history and natural beauty also makes it a sought-after tourism destination to visit with unique experiences curated for all kinds of travellers. Religious tourism, adventure tourism, leisure, business and even medical tourism are all booming segments in the tourism economy of India. We are expected to be ranked among the top five business travel markets by 2030, globally. India enjoys a strategic soft power advantage in the South Asian region by virtue of its vibrant cultural engagements and in the larger global sphere owing to its inclusive foreign policy outreach over the years.

The last eight years, especially have seen wide-ranging reforms and there are several implementation success stories which have transformed the lives of the citizen down to the grassroots levels. Spanning across industry, manufacturing, technology, digital public infrastructure, climate action, cutting edge innovation, entrepreneurship and financial inclusion – Indian policy making has followed a holistic approach to growth and advancement ensuring that the quality of lives of domestic citizens improves drastically and also world class templates are created for other countries to adopt and emulate. The G20 presidency of India will be utilised to collaborate and cooperate with nations across the world to share these best practices. We also have much to learn from other nations. As Prime Minister Modi succinctly put, “the world is one family, let’s make it a happy one.”