Building momentum towards Digital Agriculture Mission

Digital agriculture may sound odd to our ears, but it is fast becoming a reality, thanks to continuous and greater policy interventions by the Government of India into promoting farm and field-based development and advancement. This transformational journey promises big for crores of agricultural households, who need constant addition to their earnings. Since digital technologies are powerful means for connecting faster with the concerned people, streamlining processes, supporting innovations, bringing in transparency, ensuring efficiency and creating revenue streams, the Centre is putting in a lot of efforts to harness their power to pilot innovative ways, tools and approaches for agriculture sector. Digital agriculture doesn’t only intend to increase the income of farmers and rural households, but also inspire youth entrepreneurs to involve in agriculture and rural economy, which does generate jobs for the youth.

The ubiquity, mobility and agility of digital technologies have already transformed agriculture and food production in many parts of the globe. The widespread use of mobile technologies, remote sensing services and computing tools make it much easier for the farmers to access relevant information, inputs, markets, supply chains, higher productivity, besides reduction in operational costs, which invariably result in greater income. The Union Budget 2022-23 outlined a clear policy vision for delivery of digital and hi-tech services to farmers with involvement of public sector research and extension institutions along with private agri-tech player and stakeholders of agri-value chains.

‘Digital Agriculture Mission’ is yet to be finalized. However, a number of activities and initiatives are already on. A high level task force is in the process of finalizing India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA) report. Based on the views of subject experts, farmers, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and general public, the concerned department is in the process of finalizing a framework for creating ‘Agristack’ in the country, which will serve as a foundation to build innovative agri-focused solutions leveraging digital technologies to contribute effectively towards increasing the income of farmers and improve efficiency of the agriculture sector.

To give momentum to this process of digital agriculture, leading technology, agri-tech, start-ups have been invited to collaborate with the Government of India and develop Proof of Concepts (PoC) based on data of select districts and villages. Companies were invited to sign MoU on purely pro bono basis and develop the PoCs, which will help in understanding the uses of Agristack and service & solutions that can be built using available data. If found beneficial to the farmers, it would be scaled up at national level. Under National e-Governance Plan in agriculture, funds are released to the states and union territories for the projects involving use of modern technologies such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, block chain technology, internet of things, robotics among others.

Various mobile applications including KisanSuvidha have also been developed to facilitate dissemination of information to farmers on the critical parameters like weather, market prices, plant protection, agro-advisory, extreme weather alerts, input dealers of seed, pesticide, fertilizer, farm machinery, soil health card, cold storage & godowns, soil testing laboratories, veterinary centre, diagnostic labs, crop insurance premium calculator and the government schemes. And all stakeholders like state governments, state agriculture universities, ICAR, agritech start-ups, agri industry, banks, think tank, civil society, and farmer organizations have been involved in the process. Clearly, digital doesn’t remain to be just a fashionable word meant for technologists, now it is also empowering millions of farmers.

Growth of Digital Economy in India

Digitalization acquires a critical element in the development of the modern economy, giving birth to an all new term- ‘Digital Economy’ as it promises to add a lot more within a short span of time. Therefore, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, – India’s digital economy is going to be one trillion dollar by 2025 and country’s digital economy and the infrastructure sector has a total potential for 2.5 trillion dollar, it startles very few.

Digitalization or the digital transformation of the economy is essentially introduction of information and communication technologies in a sector in order to increase its efficiency, productivity, extents and competitiveness, thereby creating an innovative high-tech digital economy. Introduction of digital technologies in various sectors of the economy, such as medicine, education, housing, community services, agriculture, manufacturing, service sector and others, is fast changing the face of these industries. However, digital transformation must be intentionally inclusive and thoughtfully designed and implemented to ensure that all are well taken care of and no one is left behind.

And in India, permeating all aspects of society and influencing the way we carry out economic activities, digital technologies are playing the role of a great equaliser by distributing the fruits of economic developments to all, thereby bringing sociological changes too. India’s inclusive digital model is narrowing the digital divide among people and bringing benefits of technology to all segments of people, as less affluent states leapfrog to catch up with more affluent ones on dimensions such as internet subscriber growth, density of internet infrastructure and common service centres.

Digital technologies such as data pooling, Artificial intelligence and others are now widely used to track and diagnose issues in agriculture, health, environment, logistics, jobs and skills market, e-governance, performing daily tasks such as navigating traffic, paying a bill, financial transactions and others. Through Digital India Programme, the Government of India is focusing much on creating a strong foundation of digital infrastructure and expanding digital access to all, creating tremendous economic value and empowerment of citizens as new digital applications permeate sector after sector. These efforts have made India the second-fastest digitizing economy amongst 17 leading economies of the world and country’s digital economy may generate productivity and output sufficient to support 55 million to 60 million workers in 2025.

India’s digital vision is based on citizen centric services, where transparency and accountability are ensured as it envisions a kind of digital transformation that allows everyone – whether in rural or urban areas and irrespective of their economic or social status, take ample benefits. However, to stay ahead in the race, we need to bring in changes in our approach to education and training by placing more emphasis on science, technology, engineering, maths, soft skills, resilience, skilling, re-skilling, up-skill of the people in general.

In human development, technology has always played a revolutionary role, changing the features of the labour force, creating a new face, form, pattern and process of works and bringing about wider economic and societal changes. Spurred by the digital revolutions, the current wave of changes appears to be having much more profound impacts over the humanity and its course than others happened in history.

PLI & 5G Testbeds to prepare for better defence communication

Indian Army has been using one of its arms, the ‘Corps of Signals’ for handling military communications. For this, a robust & secure strategic infrastructure is needed to assist soldiers’ transformation into a potent, highly synergized and fully networked force. But the ambitious growth goals of the country need more pedigree in order to build a vast, multilayered and tech-sealed patrolling network. As India’s defence domain plans to take its capabilities to dizzying heights, it would now require unfailing support from other domains too, with Electronics and Telecom being one of the prime picks.

At present, many proactive measures are being taken to leverage both existing and emerging technologies to facilitate this seamless transition. The Rs.11,330 crore Network for Spectrum (NFS) was rolled out recently which aims at laying an alternate communication network for Defence Services for release of spectrum and boosting the communication capabilities in a major way leading to enhanced national operational preparedness. The project has forward linkages to other related industries such as telecom equipment manufacturing and other telecommunication related services as well. In another development, the Indian Army had collaborated with IIT Madras to establish a 5G Testbed at the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering (MCTE). The Test Bed will facilitate the Indian Army to utilise the 5G technology for its operational use, especially along its borders.

In this way, the defence sector is rightly experiencing a convergence with the telecom sector at the right time when India is exploring opportunities that technologies like 5G and schemes like PLI can present. The Department of Telecom (DoT) has launched an incentive scheme for design-led manufacturers and extended the PLI scheme for telecom by one year. The move is aimed at incentivising design-led manufacturing in the telecom sector, which comes days after India took its first step towards 5G rollout when the Union Cabinet approved a proposal to invite applications for 5G spectrum auctions.

This will also result in bolstering the Defence Startup ecosystem in the country as any latest technology, communication-based or otherwise, is like fuel for this heavy sector. In a bid to support Indian startups, the Defence Minister had also launched the sixth edition of the Defence Indian Startup Challenge (DISC) under the iDEX programme in April this year. Under this, the Defence ministry backs startups that can offer software solutions such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced imaging, sensor systems, big data analytics, autonomous unmanned systems and secured communication systems to the Indian military. MoD also aims to support Indian startups by offering financial assistance in the range of INR 1.5 Cr to INR 10 Cr. under this challenge.

Defence Startup Culture in the country is also expected to flourish in few years time as India looks forward to having trained, poised and industry-ready Agniveers as supporting staff soon. One can also expect a lot of defence-related startups mushrooming 3-4 years from now across the country, taking the defence ecosystem to hit new heights. Prospects of achieving unprecedented success will be especially brighter for those Agniveers, who possess an interest and understanding of both defence and Technology.

Setting up to harness 5G advantage

An unstoppable rise, a dizzying advance in data-carrying capacity, a decrease in latency and over 40 years of a journey – that is how a revolutionary milestone from 1G to 5G in the telecommunication sector has been achieved. Every ten years since 1979, each newer generation has experienced a changed way of communication as it evolved exponentially. From becoming truly “mobile” with analogue technology in the late 80s to live streaming videos with 4G technology, the abbreviated “G” has shown us the unending potential of Data capacity in the faster world.

And as Union Electronics & IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made the country’s first-ever 5G call at IIT Madras, India made a historic technological breakthrough in the telecom sector. The successful testing of this 5G call on an indigenously-developed network was done at the 5G Test Bed set up at the IIT Madras campus, which was dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated on 17th May, marking an important step toward self-reliance in futuristic and modern technology in the telecom sector. A state-of-art, global best-in-class advanced Indigenous 5G Solution comprises gNB (a radio base station that connects 5G New Radio (NR) devices to the 5G core network) and Core Network. The 5G Test Bed is also equipped with CPE, a latest nBIoT ASIC chip, Advanced Use cases (IoT, Smart Meter, V2X), and Advanced Technology ( Lifi as a last-mile high-speed delivery mechanism, Multi-RAT Solution). Further, the Hardware and Software developed in the project are available to entities that would like to make commercial use of the IPs through flexible licensing models as per the policies of the concerned Institutes.

Notably, the Test Bed is available to research institutions, academia, government bodies and industry for various R&D, product development, and capacity development activities. The facility will be available at 5 different locations in the country.

Speaking at the TRAI’s silver jubilee event, PM Narendra Modi had said that estimates show that the 5G network rollout will add USD 450 billion to the Indian economy. Highlighting the role of the telecom sector in the progress of the country, he had also said that by the end of this decade, the country will be able to launch 6G services of its own. The prospects seem to be strong too given the pace at which studies and collaborative efforts are bringing the change. However, with research and technological finesse, that is being harnessed from accomplished technical institutes like IIT, India also needs foresightedness and congealed management strategies, in order to realise its growth endeavours. True advancement lies not only in ideological and technological fundamentals, but also in the form in which they are furthered, an addition that can be best experimented through solid planning, managerial and result-oriented approach. Top management institutes and think-tanks can play a massive role in carving out successful itenerary for such projects.

Drone Revolution: Sky is the Limit

As the country celebrated Bharat Drone Mahotsav in the national Capital, a foundation has been laid for an emerging ecosystem of the drone market in India.

The post-Covid Indian scenario had gotten a hang of online delivery mechanism so well that two years down the line, getting things to the doorstep has become a part of businesses. As this idea settles down to mix well with the current logistical landscape across the country, many startups and tech-firms have already begun thinking of ways to use technology and evolve it to take delivery and mapping to another level. This is where Drones become tools of interest and future-shaping. India has acknowledged this well as recent years have seen many reforms inclined towards popularising drones – from liberalising the drone policy, to issuing SOP for using drones to spray pesticides in agricultural, forest lands and non-cropped areas, to permitting FPO’s to receive a grant of up to 75% of the cost of an agriculture drone, to introducing drone-powered solutions and government initiatives like the Svamitva scheme (Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas).

Union Finance Minister had announced during the Budget 2022 that the Centre will promote ‘Kisan Drones’ to help farmers assess crops, digitise land records as well as spray insecticides and nutrients. She had also affirmed that drone development is one of the four priorities of the government moving forward. Earlier in February when Prime Minister Modi flagged off 100 Kisan drones in different parts of the country, he celebrated the occasion with a remark that ‘this is the best example of how far the country can fly if policies are drafted with the right spirit.’ The agriculture sector of India especially is rapidly moving towards modernisation with the incubation of Kisan Drones. Drones for agriculture is a concept that talks about a new edge revolution intended to boost the income of farmers, ensure capacity building in the areas of production, supply and more.

The Kisan Drone Suvidha could add a new chapter in the direction of modern agricultural facilities of the 21st century. With Subsidies, farmers’ drone demonstrations, drone pilot courses, and agricultural institutions, the government needs to cultivate a drone ecosystem for the ease of farmers. Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs), Rural entrepreneurs, and Agri startups are going to occupy the central stage to establish a flourishing Kisan Drone set up for farmers. By banning the imports of drones, the government is securing a way for Indian manufacturers to fill the gap of demand and supply of Drones that may arise in the near future. Subsequently, startups like ‘Garuda’ ‘Aerspace’ are leading the space with target of manufacturing 1 lakh Made-in-India drones in the next 2 years. In addition to doubling farmers’ income, and improving the Agri sector, the motive behind Kisan Drones is to promote chemical-free national farming. Sustainable farming practices are the future of Climate Action-packed initiatives of the governments around the world. Kisan Drones will help farmers avoid wastage of water and also assisting them with collecting, recording and monitoring environmental data, paving the way for smart farming practices.

However, it is not enough to just project, implementation is also very important. There are various challenges associated with implementing Kisan Drones in the rural areas, educating framers for the same is most important of all. The reality is that drone handling could be complex and reading data from the same even more so; flight time and range, battery life, land-holding, physical obstruction, connectivity interruptions, certified usage of chemicals and nutrients, etc need to be researched well to provide specialised training.

As India celebrates ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’, the ‘Made in India’ Kisan drones will leverage country’s goal of “Aatama Nirbhar Krishi” that will not only benefit farms but also encourage Entrepreneurship.

Optimal Utilisation of Spectrum and Going Digital

To make way for the new the old has to be weaned off. New ways of content dissemination need to be explored and adapted to optimally utilize the prized resources. Spectrum being one of them. Talking about Natural Resource hardly brings attention to spectrum. But, telco revolution seen in the country and other parts of the developing world over last few decades has highlight the crucial nature of this national resource. Defining precious and priceless in the current world does culminates to spectrum, a natural resource available, exploited and in demand. And there is dearth of this exquisite resource. The haves and the have-nots both trying to secure and acquire depending on their position.

The backbone of the communication industry, spectrum plays an important role as basic support for infrastructure building and investment. Demand is ever increasing and the availability for use is highly restricted especially when talked in the context of free space. The wired backbone can support distribution from a central hub to downstream nodal hubs over the Optical fibres, or even to subscriber base but the real context is the distribution of Radio frequency spectrum in free space, the mobile cellular network, the terrestrial broadcast of Radio & Television services, satellite connectivity and direct to home.

The technological advancement which is in dire need of this resource has also provided the solution for optimum utilization of spectrum – and that is to Go Digital! Broadcast technology has also adapted itself by going Digital. The once analogy Cable TV network has now become Digital with not only the quality enhancement but also statistics generation for the subscriber base and their preferences. Television broadcasters have gone digital with the Direct to Home(DTH) technology.

Earlier where with analog transmission a bandwidth of 36MHz was required for quality transmission of one analog channel through satellite link, the current scenario is 20 to 24 TV Channels being combined digitally in the same 36MHz spectrum bandwidth. Further for pan-India connectivity for any content the need was for a large matrix of transmitter as one TV transmitter had a coverage range of around 70 Kms.

DTH has been a major effort by the Public Broadcaster in paving way for release of the crucial resource. Old and the outdated technology also lacks the industry support. As a service to the Nation, the Analog Terrestrial Transmitters of Prasar Bharati are being switched off to not only release the much demanded spectrum but also to pave way to the regional language services availability across the footprint. Dr L Murugan, Minister of State, Information & Broadcasting has rightly stated in his tweet on the 25 successful years of TRAI “On the occasion of its silver jubilee, addressed the officials today. Elaborated upon reforms undertaken at Doordarshan and how phase-out of Analogue Terrestrial Transmitters has resulted in availability of valuable spectrum.”

Another key development in the broadcasting scenario is the launch of Digital services over the IP Network. A network which has potential to add bandwidth being rigged as a cluster of Optical Fibres and Satellites. Digital over IP has a further significance in its reach, whereas in Terrestrial relay the reach depends on the hight of the tower and the power of the transmitting setup, and in satellite relay the reach is limited to the footprint area, the reach over the IP Backbone can be considered infinite on account of its availability across the World Wide Web. And, the current initiative of the Government of India to reach one and all in India and build brand India globally with timely and accurate information dissemination, Prasar Bharati News Services & Digital Platform (PBNS) has been continuously edging towards a meaningful presence for the people of India and the global Netizens.

Comeback of Regional Languages in Digital World

Language is the most potent and important invention of ingenious mankind. Languages are the tool to code the stories of human endeavours evolving over edges. The diversity of languages around the globe beautifully signify the versatility, uniqueness and robustness of human societies. India is blessed with a heritage which nurtures diversity and its languages. As smartphones penetrate their way into even the remotest areas across the globe, a new market space is being created for different sectors, especially tech-based firms. Not only are the Hyperlocal trends and cultures being brought to the fore but regional populace is being observed and listened to like never before. Thus, regional relativity and digital connectivity together have made the need of running services multilingual, almost immediate.

Global-Tech and electronic giants, media firms, publishing houses, etc. are interested in Indian markets because of the untapped potential here and wide range of target group and consumer base. With more and more exposure to globalisation, digital gadgets, online buying and selling, social networking and strengthening of the digital payments ecosystem, Indian citizenry is waiting for seamless services and flexibility. The readiness is bringing up new multilingual versions of services across almost all sectors giving Indian culture and languages a special priority and global recognition. This will also result in more and more startups in India, more employment, better educational landscape, more networking, branding and advertisement, enhanced digital banking and mobile penetration, better digital literacy, all contributing eventually in boosting India’s economy exponentially.

The Linguistic Divide is bigger than the Digital Divide but the digital infrastructure is responsible for bridging the gap to create a bigger impact. India is a country with around 425 different languages and dialects. India also has a huge base of internet subscribers and the lack of content in local languages means that users’ experience is highly impacted. Aligning with this, recently Google has announced the addition of eight Indian languages including Sanskrit to Google Translate, with the view to increase the number of regional languages supported by its online multilingual translation service. Besides Sanskrit, the other Indian languages in the latest iteration of Google Translate are Assamese, Bhojpuri, Dogri, Konkani, Maithili, and Meiteilon (Manipuri), Mizo and Sanskrit. This update is part of a bigger plan wherein Google is further expected to add 24 Indian languages to Google Translate, which now supports a total of 133 languages used around the globe. In terms of the technology, these are the first languages that have been added using the zero-shot machine translation, where a machine learning model only sees monolingual text, meaning it learns to translate it into another language without ever seeing an example. Although Google says that this technology is not perfect but the company is working towards improving it. Though this update will only be supported in the text translation feature for now, Google may also work on rolling out voice to text, camera mode, and other features too.

Digital Advancement & Innovations in Health Sector

India fought an unprecedented battle to overcome the systemic challenges induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. From expanding the healthcare infrastructure both physically and digitally to establishment of more and more AIIMS in the country at an unbelievable pace to achieving remarkable feats with the rollout of Vaccine Maitri Initiative and attaining the status of being called the ‘Pharmacy of the World’, India has emerged as the ‘Vaidya’ of the World, the knower of Health Sciences. Providing quality healthcare services to citizens during Covid was the central goal of the Indian government along with a focus on capacity building, which further helped New India to strengthen the healthcare sector in various domains.

Digital Health is one such area, where India is building strongholds to stand prepared for any future crisis. Today, the country’s healthcare is being imbibed with facilities like telemedicine and innovative methodologies that not only benefit patients but ease up service delivery for the pharma sector. India started e-Sanjeevani, a first-of-its-kind telemedicine initiative by any country during the covid pandemic, that has revolutionised the teleconsultation structure for all across the country. The success of this platform’s robust technology speaks for itself. In April 2022, the country achieved the milestone of a record 3.5 lakhs tele-consultations on a single day! Teleconsultation is possibly the future of India’s health systems, the concrete path towards establishing it has already been laid through Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres that extend e-Sanjeevani services and facilitate a perfect platform to provide health services to the last mile.

India’s Unified Health Interface provides for an open network designed to enable interoperable digital health service delivery. Last year, PM Modi announced the roll-out of Digital Health IDs under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission ( ABHA) which came out as another push towards building the Digital Health ecosystem of the country. Under this mission, 21.6 crore ABHA health IDs have been created and more than 26,000 health facilities have been connected so far.

Digital health innovations are being endorsed like never before as they assist in saving time, boosting accuracy and efficiency. With Artificial Intelligence, India is combining technologies in ways that are new to healthcare. NIRAMAI a startup based in Bengaluru designed an AI-Based screening device that can detect breast cancer at a much earlier stage than traditional methods or self-examination. Indian startups like these have put the nation on the world map of AI with their innovative technique. During the COVID period, CoWin platform, Arogya Setu, innovative PPE Kits, testing kits, advanced masks, etc. were some of the need-based innovations made by the National Health Authority, premiere institutes, and startups across the nation. Such breakthroughs aided by the government’s policy initiatives ensure that India will leapfrog in the digital space by leveraging technologies that provide digital services.

Drones have arrived in India

The sky over Delhi was lit up with 1,000 drones, when a spectacular event put up by ‘made-in-India’ drones highlighted this year’s ‘Beating Retreat’ ceremony in January 2022. Notably, the 1,000 drone show set India on the world stage, precisely in the top four after the U.K, China, and Russia. This was followed by by the speech of Budget 2022, wherein Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the Centre will promote ‘Kisan Drones‘ to help farmers assess crops, digitise land records as well as spray insecticides and nutrients.

As the government now adds PLI Scheme benefits to manufacturing of drone and drone components, the growth that now awaits this sector would be rapid and exponential. The list of beneficiaries by MoCA includes five drone manufacturers and nine drone component manufacturers. The scheme would provide a total incentive of INR 120 crore over three financial years, which is approximately double the combined turnover of all domestic drone manufacturers in FY 2020-21. What is worth highlighting is the fact that the PLI rate here is 20% of the value-added, which is among the highest rates among PLI schemes. Manufacturers who fail to satisfy the value addition criteria in 2021-22 will also be able to recover the lost incentive in the following year if they make up the shortfall in 2022-23, which is a unique element of the drone PLI scheme. Apart from the PLI Scheme, the government of India has implemented various reforms with an aim to make India a worldwide drone hub by 2030. This includes publication of the Drone Airspace Map 2021 which opened nearly 90% of Indian airspace as a green zone up to 400 feet, The UAS Traffic Management (UTM) policy framework 2021, The Drone Certification Scheme 2022 to make it easier for drone manufacturers to obtain a type certificate and introduction of the Drone (Amendment) Rules, 2022.

The global commercial drone market size was valued at USD 13.44 billion in 2020. It is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57.5% from 2021 to 2028. In such a time, the ban that the central government imposed on importing drones (The Drone Import Policy 2022) has turned out to be a powerful step in making India self-reliant, as it has hugely encouraged domestic manufacturers. As per the estimates by Civil Aviation Ministry, India’s drone sector is expected to achieve a total turnover of Rs. 120-150 billion (US$ 1.63-2.04 billion) by 2026, from its current turnover of about Rs. 800 million (US$ 10.88 million). In addition, the government plans to attract investments of Rs. 5,000 crore (US$ 669.07 million) in the next three years in the drone manufacturing industry and create over 10,000 job opportunities.

Drones have found quite a good space in the Indian landscapes. In August 2021, the Ministry of Civil Aviation liberalised the drone use policy. This was followed by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare issuing the SOP for using drones to spray pesticides in agricultural, forest lands and non-cropped areas. This was soon followed by India becoming the first-ever country to commercially produce and spray Nano Liquid Urea through Drone in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar. A drone subsidy proposal was also included later in the drone policy. It is through this clause that FPO’s can now receive a grant of up to 75% of the cost of an agriculture drone. Innovative drone-powered solutions and government initiatives like the Svamitva scheme (Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas), which is surveying inhabited Indian rural lands using drone technology are already taking advantage of these measures.

India’s leap in digital payment paradigm

“Many countries praised the CoWin app, which was created for vaccination during the first COVID period and Nepal has now adopted India’s UPI for digital transactions. It will bolster interoperable real-time person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions,” said a PIB release breaking the news of Nepal adopting India’s UPI for digital transactions. The development comes days after tourists & migrants to the United Arab Emirates with Indian bank accounts became eligible to do payments via UPI at various shops, retail facilities and other merchants in the UAE. Apart from these two nations, UPI Global is already live in Singapore and Bhutan, and would enable Indian travellers to make easy payments.

The scale and speed with which UPI operates in India is unprecedented with over 155 banks currently live on the UPI platform. UPI had enabled 39 billion financial transactions amounting to commerce worth $940 billion in the year 2021, a figure equivalent to around 31% of India’s GDP. As per recorded data, such a massive number of transactions haven’t happened on a single platform anywhere in the world. BHIM-UPI even achieved a record of 452.75 crore digital payment transactions to the tune of Rs 8.27 lakh crore till February 28, 2022.

To take digital payment to every nook and corner of the country, various steps have been taken by MeitY. Incentive schemes like the promotion of RuPay Debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (P2M) facilitate Banks in building a robust digital payment ecosystem, promoting RuPay Debit cards and BHIM-UPI digital transactions, across all sectors and segments of the population, and further deepening digital payments in India. Additionally, Incentive/cashback schemes were launched by MeitY for changing the customer/merchant behavior for faster adoption of digital payments in India. Some of them were BHIM Cashback schemes for Individuals & Merchants, BHIM Aadhaar Merchant Incentive Scheme, BHIM-UPI Merchant Onboarding Scheme Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) Reimbursement scheme. Another step towards improving digital infrastructure was the scheme titled “Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA)” to usher in digital literacy in rural India.The introduction of QR scanning for making digital payments has also contributed to increasing the number of digital payments over the last few years because of the added ease and flexibility.

The success lies in the flexibility as UPI offers users to pay through easy QR codes and quick PINs, while the world still struggles and stays on traditional methods, such as card systems, which are still dominant in developed states across the globe. Check payments are still very common in various parts of the European countries. UPI is simple and doesn’t require users to carry anything extra other than their smartphones. RuPay and UPI, together are beating cash and card-based transactions in the country with whopping margins. The continuation of this trend may lead to them taking over the global competitors like American express, VISA and Mastercard, and other Global Giants that have ruled the Indian payment systems for decades. UPI is becoming popular in other foreign countries at a right time, as absence of a similar Open, Simple & Powerful payments interface may leverage India’s position in the foreign markets.