Nilekani argues the case for a digital India

He is the brains behind the Aadhar card project. And following the abrupt demonetisation move by the prime minister, Nandan Nilekani feels that now is the ideal time to make the case for a digital India.
Nilekani was giving the keynote address, ‘India@70: Rebooting the Republic’, on the opening day of the Times Lit Fest, and argued fervently for transforming the way Indians live, consume and transact.
‘Rebooting India’ details his experiences of working on the UIDAI with the government. “It’s a project which went very well. It was executed before time and below budget, which is not very common,” he described.
“This (demonetisation) shock to the system will help in accelerating the digitisation of the economy. But yes, we are going through pain, and we’ll have to bear with the pain for a while,” said Nilekani. He maintained that UIDAI has helped pave the way to a cashless economy, and even made India better prepared to handle the monetary jolts.
“Because of the efforts of the last seven years, a lot of the pieces are already in place, like the Aadhar card, and the Aadhar payment bridge. And instead of a time frame of three years, I see digitisation happening within three to six months.”
The biggest challenge thrown up by demonetisation is the disruption of the flow of money, more so in small transactions, at shops and small establishments. “The risk is that economic activity will come down. So the key is making merchant transactions cashless, and we have the infrastructure for that.”
There are people who don’t have smartphones or ‘feature’ phones, but they have Aadhar. “People can use their Aadhar number and make a cashless payment. They can also use the card at micro ATMs, at grocery stores and PCs,” Nilekani said.
Asked whether he felt miffed that the current government had borrowed his UID idea and made it their own, he said that on the contrary, he’s happy it has survived and thrived. “My loyalty is to Aadhar.”
Technology, Nilekani insisted, should be used judiciously, and to help empower people. “I am a great believer that we can use technology to develop solutions that can have a great impact.
“The infrastructure we have created is seeping into the system, becoming an integral part of it.” And digitisation must complement areas like education and health. “If we have to address a billion people’s aspirations, we have to rethink and reimagine. For example, how can we apply this architecture to education and health?
“Because building more schools and employing more teachers won’t help in meeting the challenges that India faces.”
Ultimately, technology will take government and bureaucracy out of the equation, and negate the role of the middleman. Such a system, he believes, will be open, and thus less susceptible to fraud.