Public digital infrastructure helped micro level players grow in India: FM Sitharaman

India’s approach to spreading digital infrastructure networks by country’s “public money” instead of choosing private players, unlike other countries, helped the micro-level players and businesses to grow, said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday. Interacting with the students at JAIN University in Bengaluru, Sitharaman added that the government and stakeholders played an important part in making the evolution of digital infrastructure successful.

The Union Finance Minister said, “India’s approach to spreading digital network was completely driven by the country by its public money. It was funded by the government. Very many other countries even today go through the root of a private player who’s produced a platform through which you can access global markets, which means that private players will take some nominal charges at least from every user. Whereas what India did was to create this huge infrastructure allowed it for banking purposes, allowed it for health purposes, allowed it for marketing purposes, allowed it for payment purposes so on allowed it for education purposes.”

“So this public infrastructure which was created gave the benefit for very very minor user, micro level user also without having to pay for it. So a small business which wanted to grow which wanted to access markets beyond their village today,” Sitharaman added.

Highlighting the success of the digital revolution in the country, she cited an example of her interaction during the visit to Nagaland.

She asserted that even the NGOs in Nagaland are getting orders from the US during Christmas due to the success of the digital revolution that took place in the country. She further added that the government has come up with Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an open network for digital commerce that is helping even the bigger e-commerce businesses.”So the Digital inclusion, financial inclusion, people are not waiting for somebody to come and educate them because it’s already in simple language and reaching in their phone. They’re able to access this. And this will only grow and grow more,” Union Finance Minister said adding that there is a need to continuously update the technologies in future.