India - the next 25

A very happy Independence Day. A day to be so proud of what we as a nation have accomplished in the last 75 years. Now looking forward to the next 25 years and I believe this 25 years?of defining India’s Future will be powered by Technology

In today’s day and age, #technology , economic growth, and human well-being are intricately linked; they work in unison towards differentiating a developing nation from a developed one. World over, countries have transformed into “industrial nations” with the power of tech and accelerated their journey to development. The power of connections, through people, digital alliances, or ecosystems, have led nations to forge their new identities as research hubs, manufacturing giants, or simply rapid urban growth centres. India is no exception—over the past couple of decades, we have come far as a nation, and if we think about it, technology is indeed helping shape our future. Let’s look at how:

1.??????Tech-led economic growth of the country

For any large country to develop, its top 100 to 200 cities need to grow at a rapid pace. While in India there is uneven growth in the large urban centres, leading organisations have started to establish parts of their operations in the hinterland of the country. This, combined with a strong IT and engineering workforce of 2 million professionals currently based in India’s top 15 Tier-II cities, heralds a tech-led transformation for the country, hauling India’s regional cities to parity with its metros. And it works both ways—for people looking for an enhanced quality of life and work and for organisations looking to broaden their talent pool.

·??????Enhanced quality of life: When the pandemic hit us in 2020, we realised, to our surprise, that in our Consulting business?alone, 60-65% of our people lived and worked from cities outside the metros and that number increased to 90% when we started hiring through the pandemic. #covid -19, in addition to setting off a “reverse migration” trend, also found people reimagining the why, where, and how of work—owing to the flexibility, brought about by remote or hybrid work and made possible by technology. Over time, the economies of these cities are bound to benefit from this influx, contributing to their economic transformation to match their Tier 1 counterparts.?This transformation appears to have begun already – for example, in 2020 Tier-II and III cities outpaced Tier-I cities in e-commerce sales volumes.

·??????Diversity of talent and opinions: Tech has enabled a global defiance of the traditional 9 to 5 routine. Flexibility has significantly expanded the talent pool that organisations can tap into. So, despite the great resignation, filling the talent gap quickly and with the right fit was possible. Remarkably, we saw much less attrition amongst our women colleagues with the flexibility and assurance of equal opportunity and career prospects. Moreover, the #diversity of the talent pool was enhanced ?beyond gender to now include those from the differently abled or underserved communities. Suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by an emerging and inclusive workforce—one that transcends multiple borders, is high potential, tech-driven, ambitious, and yet values work-life harmony and remote working.

2.??????Climate impact of technology

#climate change is not a choice, it’s billions of them. The impact we wish to achieve can be somewhat enabled by technology. To alleviate the primary climate concerns that India faces, significant and bold operational changes will be required. While the government has, as part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), outlined clear objectives founded in research and scientific modeling tools, organisations are stepping up to collaborate with and execute the government’s agenda—their mission fuelled by technology.

Take #stubble burning as a case in point. Large areas of northern India experience severe air quality for about three months due to stubble burning. With the power of technology, the farmer who is looking to burn the crop can be connected to an uberised network of equipment manufacturers and vendors who can help discard it in a sustainable manner. This aggregated response mechanism, built on a powerful cloud-based platform, is a simple correction to an ages old practice. #digital technology is evolving every day and when combined with concerted efforts towards reducing use of energy-intensive resources, the opportunities are endless.

3.??????Better health outcomes for all?

A normal vaccine takes anywhere between 5 and 10 years to develop and introduce safely to the population at large. Yet, the first vaccine in India was released in about eight to nine months because of tech-led collaboration between research teams, clinical trials, government and funding agencies as well as regulators.?

The vaccination drive through CO-WIN is another example of open, interoperable, and unified transaction protocol-driven technology to support vaccination registration and issuance of verifiable digital vaccination certificates. This application has enabled nearly 200 crore vaccinations across the length and breadth of the country. For a nation of our scale and diversity, only technology can build platforms that impact individuals, across distant villages and hamlets and where tech penetration continues to be nascent.

And finally, our own experience with Sanjeevani Pariyojana in Haryana, where we leveraged a low-cost, open source, tried-and-tested tool for implementation in a district to support analytics-driven hotspot identification, patient lifecycle management, allocation of scarce resources, asset tracking, tools for Asha/ANM/Anganwadi workers and home isolation patients to update data. The platform helped identify all resource needs to strengthen healthcare infrastructure and respond to the pandemic. This simple exercise enabled by technology helped us reduce the fatality rate by 50% and save lives. We are currently extending the model we developed to strengthening maternal care with a special emphasis on anemia. Our program is supporting the identification of anemia amongst nearly 3,000 participants in villages of Haryana and enabling nudge-based behaviour-change towards better nutrition, sanitation and consumption of supplements. Prompt action has already helped save women and children’s lives. ?The convergence of tech with medical science has gone a long way in improving outcomes and enhancing equity. ??

4.??????Financial inclusion of the country

India is far ahead in payments systems compared with most other countries, and technology has enabled ease of digital transactions especially amongst the underserved communities. This, combined with widespread availability of smartphones, low-cost data, and changing customer behaviour is redefining India’s digital economy. Today, technology helps manage real-time #payments worth approximately INR 5.5 trillion approximately.

Several government initiatives have also helped accelerate financial inclusion and ensured seamless access to financial services. #aadhar has provided digital identities to 99% of the country’s adult population. On the other hand, JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan-Aadhar-Mobile linkage) has been foundational in ensuring that government benefits reach the entitled beneficiaries without leakage. In the last eight years, benefits worth INR 23 lakh crore have been transferred. Of the over 45 crore Jan Dhan accounts opened in the past seven years, 55% are with rural women and 66% accounts?are held in rural and semi-urban bank branches; more interestingly so, the delinquency ratio amongst women is 10 times lower than men. #upi consumers made over 670 million transactions above the value over INR 1 lakh in the month of January 2019 alone. All of these will ensure better financial inclusion and will be something many other countries would want to emulate.

5.??????Ease and transparency of governance

Technology connects people and can bring transparency. It will be remiss to talk about the impact of technology and not focus on the measures the government has taken to improve its e-service delivery to citizens. The vision of a digital India was a tall ask that needed focus on developing the infrastructure to bring the population on a common platform, enhance financial inclusion and digital literacy, and build the required transparency amongst its users for ease of delivery. Gone are the days when getting a loan was a month-long process embedded in bureaucracy and corruption. Today banks and institutions across the country can give credit even to the bottom of the pyramid in less than 24 hours, which has only been possible because of technology. Be it through the Bharat Net programme that aims to connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats (GP) by fiber-optic network, Aadhar, Digital India and Bharat?Interface for Money-Unified Payments?(BHIM-UPI), the government’s many initiatives have simplified the way citizens interact with the government. The National Scholarship Portal, for example, registered 14 million students and has disbursed Rs 5,295 crore worth of scholarships from 2016 to 2019. UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New Age Governance) gives the citizens access to 339 government services. Furthermore, 312,000 Common Services Centers bringing e-services to rural India provide over 350 services across sectors such as education, health, and agriculture, generating employment to 12,00,000 people including 55,000 women.

All aspects of life in the 21st century is going to be powered by tech. India has, over the years, been building its identity as a young, tech-curious, and tech-forward country. Countless investments in, and innovations and unicorns from the subcontinent have transformed life around the globe. What also augurs well is the intrinsic belief amongst the average population to leverage tech to solve larger social problems. India’s development journey, as I said before, is tethered to the development of its top 200 cities and ultimately those who are underserved, those at the bottom of the pyramid. Whether that may be in the growing presence of leading organisations, a workforce choosing to set their base in these cities, the increasing and equitable access to healthcare, or growing financial literacy—at their core, lies tech as an enabler. What we are witnessing today is the gradual unfolding of this chapter; the mechanisms of a better future and India’s rightful place in the world by 2047?similar to when India’s GDP was the highest in the world 400 years back. All this powered by tech.??