Will Modi’s structural reforms and aggressive push for Digital India finally connect the dots? A critical debate…
Over the last seven decades, India has gone through several transformational events such as the green revolution, economic reforms, demonetization and the GST, to name a few. These have slowly led India to become an emerging global power with its rich demographic dividend and economic resilience. However, as we race towards the 75th anniversary of Independence in 2022, searching questions are being raised as to what will be the look of this New India? Will it still have the largest share of the world’s poor, with over 270 million living below poverty line? Will it have sustained and inclusive economic growth with employment for all? Will its healthcare sector continue to be plagued with lack of doctors and infrastructural problems in rural India? What will be the state of its highways, railways, ports and air connectivity to tier-II and III cities? What’s going to happen to its fast-growing entrepreneurship ecosystem? Will PM Modi’s favorite schemes like MUDRA Yojna, Swachch Bharat, Make in India, Stand-Up India and Startup India, etc. bring the desired results? Will Digital India boost job creation? Will the relationship between the Judiciary and the Government improve?
To address some of these critical questions, the Chairman of Hero Enterprise, Sunil Kant Munjal, recently invited the Union Minister for Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology of the Government of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad, at the inaugural session of his MindMine Summit in Delhi.
We’ve a billion phone connections; a billion bank accounts; a billion people with a digital identity and that’s absolutely unique. It has never happened anywhere else in the world. Actually there is no example of any democracy giving full civil liberties first and then turning it into a market economy. The only one which comes closer to us is Poland
-Sunil Kant Munjal
This MindMine Summit comes at an interesting time. Though it doesn’t follow the dozen before it but pushes the boundaries a bit. In 2006, when we started, India was a less than a trillion dollar economy. Now at $2.6 trillion according to IMF and after displacing France, India is today the world’s sixth largest economy. The five ahead us are only the US, China, Japan, Germany and the UK. So, India’s standing has obviously gone up, but now, Mr Prasad, you’ve a very tough job as a minister and leader in politics who interacts with the people because we’re an interesting country with interesting people.
In India, most commentators want the social policy of Sweden, the economic policy of Cuba, the defense policy of Fiji, the sexual policy of France, the education policy of Finland, non-alignment of Switzerland, the refugee policy of Germany, and the economic growth of China and India, put together. I think, as Indians, we’ve every right to demand the best. For too long, we have talked about India’s potential and so we’re delighted that today many believe, it’s here and now. In many ways, we’re blessed to be born and have seen this time where India is claiming its rightful place in the comity of nations.
Increasingly, the impression of India of being a strong, high-growth and responsible nation is growing. The very idea of India which used to be questioned even within India in some senses has become a moot point now.
As we’re moving forward rapidly, the pace of change is phenomenal. There’s just so much happening right now whether it’s building more roads, airports and highways or building digital highways and connecting the rural parts to the rest of India. We’ve already connected 280 million people to our economy who were earlier not connected. That’s more than the population of most countries in the world!
We’ve a billion phone connections; a billion bank accounts; a billion people with a digital identity and that’s absolutely unique. It has never happened anywhere else in the world. What we’re doing in many ways is truly an absolutely amazing experiment. There’s no blue book written for a billion people democracy trying to turn itself into market economy. Actually there is no example of any democracy giving full civil liberties first and then turning it into a market economy. There’s not one not the US, not Japan, not Germany such example, except India. The only one which comes closer to us is Poland. Who would’ve imagined this because even in countries like the UK and the US, women didn’t get the right to vote till recently.
So, what it is that holds us together? That’s a question we should ask ourselves every now and then. Why is this idea of India important? And, I do believe in its importance, which is why we’re able to drive what we’re doing right now. We’ve had our challenges and they’re not few and have made the government’s job interesting. That’s why I say, Mr. Prasad, your job is not easy. You’re in the midst of an area where the most exciting changes are taking place. The digital era that we face right now is driving a lot of decision-making around the world. On one hand, there is excitement of using technology to make life better, on the other, there’s fear that I will have no privacy left. Also, I might even lose my job. If there’s a machine that can do my job better than me, what am I going to do? So, it’ll be interesting to hear from you what you believe is the role technology and communications are playing? Why for us, in India, this is more a plus than a minus because we’ll have both—that is the very nature of the beast.
Your other area of Law and Justice is something which, for a long time, is crying for reforms. So, it would be interesting to hear from you what you think is happening? How is the relationship between Judiciary and Government? What can we expect in terms of change of pace of how litigation and cases get handled in India? Can we expect ever the millions of backlog cleared? Can technology, that also you’re heading in many senses, help fast track that big change?
In four years, this country will be 75-years. Both the world and we ourselves are carefully looking at where will this land us in the 75th year? That’s because when we’re 60, people said, this’s not okay we’ve been independent for 60 years and we’re still not able to meet the needs of all the people of this country. There is still hunger. We’ve 200 million people still living in abject poverty. What is it that we’re doing? What is it that we need to do to have rapid growth to take care of this scourge of poverty? This is the single biggest challenge that we face as a nation. Therefore, the issue of jobs which comes up again and again and the idea of creating more and more economic opportunities have become critical. How do you think we can trigger more of those by what you’re doing as a government and what we’re doing as industry, and what collectively India can do to help itself?
It’s also clear that we’ll never be able to create just enough jobs for the number of young people coming of age, which is why it’s absolutely imperative that we trigger more new enterprise. So, startups have become extremely important. We’ve already become the third largest startup nation in the world and headed to become the second in not too distant future. It’s critical that we as a nation support this initiative in every way possible. This is not just our savior but also help us use technology, and not get used by technology. It will also allow us to drive technology to find solutions to our needs for education, healthcare, social services, public services, government services, and for the most sophisticated industries to become the best in class and to compete with the best in the world. Why should we expect anything less than the best as citizens from the government? Why should our relationship with government not be only a digital one? Why should there be even a need for a physical relationship with government either for industries or for citizens?
The IT-growth in India has had three phases. The first was when Indian IT companies went to 200 cities of 80 countries and gave billions of dollars as tax. The second was when IT companies from developed countries started coming to India. The third phase is now: When India is looking towards the world through the Startup Movement
-Ravi Shankar Prasad
The main issue is the size and weight of India. Looking back, a question arises: Was the size of India matching the clout of India? Was the size of India matching the respect and global authority of India? It’s a crucial question to be asked.
Recently, the Prime Minister was in Sweden, and there was a public reception in Stockholm, where the Swedish PM, Stefan Lofven, made a very telling observation “Today India is a global power and Mr Narendra Modi is a global voice. And this voice is required to settle a lot of global issues.” Before that, the British PM, Theresa May, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and even the American President, Donald Trump, had also talked in the same way.
Today whenever I go globally as a minister, I myself experience the kind of authority that India is being accorded, obviously because our PM is a global leader. But I’ll give you just two instances.
Mr Narendra Modi has been given the equivalent of Bharat Ratna by Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran, the UAE and also by the Philippines all without asking. What do you make out of it? This ability to eloquently convey India’s global status also marks India’s striking outreach not only to Saudi Arabia but also to Iran for the sake of energy security and for Chabahar Port for strategic security. The Palestine President, Mahmoud Abbas, also says that India’s clout can be used to settle issues with Israel.
Is it not a surprise that it took 70 years for an Indian PM to go to Israel, a country of great innovation, and the PM never bucked into pressures?
Today, India is setting the agenda also on sustainable development which is a very dear topic to Sunil. This whole issue of climate justice and solar alliance as a parallel process to energy security for sustainable development is also India’s contribution to the global energy challenges.
Similarly, India’s ‘no compromise’ attitude on the issues of terrorism, flash money and black money has forced the G-20 countries to speak the language of India. No wonder, today, India’s size is increasingly matching India’s clout. India’s weight is increasingly felt and appreciated globally. These are but a few instances that show India’s growing global appeal which needs to be appreciated.
I also want to talk about India’s economy. The latest IMF report states that India’s growth rate is 7.4 per cent this year and 7.8 next year—the highest in the world! But it has come because of hard work and policy clarity. Last year our FDI was 60 billion dollars; this year, till December, it was 39 billion—again we’ve not just the highest foreign exchange reserves but we also have very comfortable inflation and both the fiscal and the current account deficits. It has all happened because of policy initiatives taken by the government and the capacity to say ‘No,’ if something is wrong.
GST, as you all know, was very important for the sake of creating a single Indian market but the difference in the previous and present dispensation was to take the State governments on board. In India, Sunil rightly pointed out, every State government and every individual has a point of view. Yet today one crore people have come on board on the digital platform of GST and over one crore new tax-returns have been filed on the digital platform.
India is changing and I’ll share few examples that make me very proud. After becoming the IT minister in 2014, I’d gone to Bengaluru to meet the IT giants. After a two-hour’s meeting, when I came out, hundreds of boys working in various IT projects from Bihar, UP, MP, Assam, Rajasthan were waiting outside. They met me and one of them said “Sir kuchh aisa kariye ki hum apne gaaon ki taraf vaapas laut saken. Bengaluru is very costly.” During the flight back home, while thinking about it, I came up with the idea of starting BPOs in small towns of India.
We picked up 48,000 seats in 2015, fiscal subsidy of 1 lakh per seat if you go to tier II, III, IV cities based on census population; UP got 8000, Bihar got 4000, northeast got 5000 seats. I excluded the digitally-rich cities of India like Gurgaon, Delhi, Noida, Pune and Hyderabad. I can honestly tell you, my bureaucrats were dead opposed “Sir, aap ye kya kar rahe hain, kuch nahi hoga”. I told them, “Hoga, Karo, Karna hai”.
Today, 82 BPOs in 27 states of India have become operational. BPOs have come up in Kohima, Imphal, Guwahati, Patna, Siliguri, Muzaffarpur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bareilly, Bhiwandi, Aurangabad, Vellore and Anantnag. The next slot, which we’ve just finalized, is coming up in Gazipur, Deoria, Gaya and Jahanabad. At least 15 of them are getting orders from Australia, America and England. They have 50% girls and 50% boys. This is the quest for empowerment and change of India which we encourage.
The second is this great movement for Common Service centers (CSCs). They are digital kiosks that give digital delivery of services. Earlier we had about 80,000 of them but very shabbily maintained. I’ve scaled them up to 2.91 lakh; out of which 1.51 lakh are in the gram panchayats of India. They make Aadhar Card, PAN Card, provide banking & insurance services, act as vendors for hundreds of courses of the IGNOU and also drive the PM’s digital literacy movement.
The third thing I want to talk about is our mobile phone penetration. If you could recall, not long ago, even a landline phone was considered a luxury and there used to be a waiting list in millions. Today, thanks to our liberal policies, situation has changed beyond recognition. We’ve 121-crore mobile phones, 120-crore Aadhar and 50-crore smartphones in India!
One day Modi ji asked me, “Ravi, tum itna kehte ho, par ye batao hindustan me mobile banta kitna hai?” When our government had come to power there were only two factories; Nokia had been closed. Today, we’ve over 120 mobile manufacturing factories in India. They’re spread all over the country but Noida and Greater Noida have become big centers for 54 mobile factories including Samsung’s biggest mobile factory in the world. Many of these 120 factories are making mobiles, chargers, batteries, accessories including circuit printers which I’ve cleared for many of them. About five lakh employments have been given.
India is becoming a big centre of consumer electronics which I’m pushing as minister. But what’s important is to see the nature of change possible. The revenue roll-over was 19,000 crore, then 54,000 crore then it reached to 90,000 crore and by this March end, it crossed 1,25,000 crore. We’re going to satisfy the needs of the Indian consumers in the coming two years by scaling-up production from present 22-crore to 50-crore mobile phones every year. All the best global brands are there except the iPhone with which were negotiating. So, change is possible.
Now, let me talk about the digital part of this change-over. Narendra Modi in his 2014 campaign said, if my government comes to power, the theme of its governance will be: ‘IT + IT’ = ‘IT’, that is, ‘IT’ (India’s Talent) + ‘IT’ (Information Technology) = ‘IT’ (India of Tomorrow).
I remember when I took charge of the IT Ministry, reporters asked me what will be the theme of your governance. I said, “If Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government was known for National Highways, Mr Narendra Modi’s government will be known for Information Highways.” And, that’s exactly how we’re doing it.
By digital India, we aim to reduce the divide between the digital-haves and have-nots. Digital India is more for the poor and underprivileged. We want to empower ordinary citizens with the power of technology. We want to bring in digital-inclusion based on technology which is domestic, home-grown and development-oriented.
The basic theme of Digital India is creation of digital infrastructure, digital delivery of services and digital empowerment of Indians. A lot has been done on infrastructure side. We’re going to link-up 2.5-lakh gram panchayats of India by optical fiber network. This program me was called National Optical fiber Network (NOFN) during the Manmohan Singh government. Now we’ve redefined it as Bharat Net. Just one statistics will give you the results: in three-years of his government from 2011; 350 km of optical fiber was laid but in 3.5 years of Narendra Modi government, over 2.5-lakh kms of optical fiber was laid. That’s how we’ve worked. About 1.5 lakh panchayats have been linked and you can use that facility also for your own work. The system is in place by the Communications Department. The second part involving Wi-Fi through Common Service centers and more empowerment through digital technology is what we’re doing, the details I wish to avoid here due to time-constraints.
The next is: digital delivery of services. I remember the subsidy part. You must have heard about the JAM trinity Jandhan, Aadhar, Mobile. Regardless of nationalization of banks, there wasn’t access of poor people to the banks. But we opened 30-crore bank accounts of the poor in a mission mode. We linked them up with Aadhar and mobile, and started sending different subsidies cash subsidy, ration subsidy, MNREGA payment, etc., through their bank accounts, known as Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme. Thereby we’ve saved over 83,000 crores in the last 3.5 years, which used to be pocketed by middlemen and fictitious claimants.
When we came to power, we found many states were having MNREGA workers but all the farmers were affluent and there wasn’t a single actual worker. They’re all on registers only. You must have heard the famous story of how beti paida hui nahi, vo badi ho gayi, uski shaadi ho gayi aur phir vo vidhwa bhi ho gayi aur vidhwa pension leti rahi. All these stories have now become things of the past.
Digital governance is good governance; digital delivery is faster delivery; digital monitoring is the effective monitoring. This is the mantra of our government!
Now, let me talk a little about Aadhar since a lot is being said about it. I hope I’ve brought my Aadhar Card with me. How does the 120-crore Aadhar data become vulnerable? My Aadhar card contains my photograph, my name, my father’s name and my permanent Patna address. It doesn’t contain my religion, my community, my caste or my medical or income records by which I can be profiled. But what it does contain in the system is my biometrics and my iris. Do you know there are 3.5-crore authentications done everyday free of cost? Aadhar costs $1 by a low-cost technology.
Suppose a bank asks Ravi Shankar Prasad has come. This is his Aadhar number. The system in Bengaluru and Manesar will verify it and say in just three seconds, yes, this number is that of Ravi Shankar Prasad. The system doesn’t know what for this information was sought because it’s federated.
The difference between UPA Aadhaar and NDA Aadhar is: UPA Aadhar didn’t have any legislative basis. But Narendra Modi’s Aadhar is properly backed by a parliamentary law with due regard to privacy. Even if I, as the Law Minister of India, disclose my bio-metrics for unauthorized use, I can suffer prosecution for three-years, and for companies, it’s seven-years including huge penalty.
The only reason your Aadhar information can be revealed is when, for compelling national security, a committee of the joint secretary of the Home Ministry, affirmed by the Cabinet Secretary, Law Secretary and IT Secretary of India, confirm it for three months. Only then it can be disclosed!
We have a good privacy architecture. Since the matter is being discussed in the Supreme Court, I can’t say much but I proudly say it today that the Aadhar of India stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Google’s and the Face books of the world as a great innovation that is being appreciated globally by the World Bank and others. That’s how we’ve done it.
Crores of Indians are today using digital lockers, e-sign, cloud all our low-cost, home-grown technologies. Of course, we’ve have given openings to private sector also but upon defined terms and conditions only. I insisted on the open source. There was a lot of debate on this, but I said, nothing doing, it has to be open because India is emerging as a big digital economy. People from Bihar and other places used to come to Delhi for medical check-ups at AIIMS and wait for months to get an appointment. Today, 270 Indian hospitals are e-hospitals. Just at the click of a button, you can get an appointment there.
Today, 1.5 crore Indians are getting e-scholarships and the system is transparent. Similarly, 12 crore farmers are using soil-health cards that digitally helps in explaining the health of their soil.
Earlier elderly in India had to certify in person that they’re alive, in November every year. They may be in abroad in Australia or England with their grand-children but had to come back just for this verification so that they can get their pensions, etc.
Jeevan Pramaan is a digital profile through which you can certify digitally that you’re alive, and continue getting your pension.
For digital empowerment, we’re going to make 6-crore poor people digitally literate in the rural areas and that’s how about 1-crore have been certified and undertaken. Many of you from the corporate world can get involved in these processes as part of your CSR activities. But I leave that judgment on you.
The IT-growth in India has had three phases. The first was when Indian IT companies went to 200 cities of 80 countries and kept the tricolor flying high. They gave billions of dollars as tax to the US and other countries and were respected for their work. The second was when the IT companies from the developed countries started coming to India due to the sheer promise of our digital markets. Facebook has the biggest footprint in India. Then whole lot of Amazons, Twitters, Linked Ins, WhatsApp and others started coming to India to have a big presence here. The third phase is now, when India is looking towards the world through the Startup Movement which Sunil also talked about. Remember, after China, India is today the biggest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world. These companies, from Amazon to WhatsApp have the biggest footprints in India. We’ve the third biggest startup eco-system in the world and the biggest certificate for this was given to me by the giant of a big tech company, who said, “Mr. Minister, earlier when I used to go to the IIITs to pick up toppers for my company they used to rush; now when I go there, they say, sorry, I want my own startup. I want to become a job-giver and not a job- seeker.” That’s the face of this emerging New India, which we’re encouraging in a big way.
One thing on employment too because Sunil raised his concerns about that: Today in the IT sector, about 40 lakh people work directly and 1.3 crore work indirectly. This is the conventional IT-sector. I just talked about the mobile sector where about five lakh are working directly/indirectly. I also talked about the BPO movement and this trillion-dollar digital economy has the potential to add 50-75 lakh jobs in the coming 5-7 years in the digital space only in terms of employment.
The NASCOM report on future of jobs in 2022 is already there and we’re in touch with the IT-giants. About 1.1 lakh people have been appointed formally in the IT sector just recently. Yes, technology has an apprehension of displacing jobs but, by hindsight, that becomes wrong. Remember when computers were being introduced by Rajiv Gandhi, there was a lot of opposition that computers will take away jobs; But today computer is the biggest job-giver. New technologies from Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis, Machine Learning, Robotics to Digital Gaming and others maybe requiring new skilling but they’ll be creating hundreds and thousands of new jobs. Our PM is very keen that Indians become skilled in using new technologies from Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis, Machine Learning, Robotics to Digital Gaming and others maybe requiring new skilling, but they’ll be creating hundreds and thousands of new jobs.
For any democracy to succeed, legal reforms are important because access to justice is part of good governance. We’ve deleted only 1400 laws that were outdated and creating problems. We’ve set-up a Judicial Data Grid which contains details of 6-crore data of old, pending cases and interim orders. I’m culling them out and writing to all chief justices to please expedite disposal of cases that are ten-years old. Alternative dispute mechanism is also working quite well. We’ve disposed-off about 2.5-crore plus cases. It’s a challenging job because we also have to deal with hundreds of PILs filed every day by my lawyer friends.
The second is the larger issue of judicial infrastructure where we’ve invested heavily. Today 14,000 courts of India are digitized. But we also have our limitations and I want to conclude by sharing it because you must have an idea of the mind of the government.
Judicial appointments have been an area of intense debate. Since Collegium system needed improvement, we came up with the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) in August 2014 itself and despite political discord, the entire parliament passed it in one voice and 50% of state legislatures also passed it unanimously but the Supreme Court struck it down. We’ve respected the judgment and we’re following it.
But we’ve reservations on the reasoning of this judgment which is disturbing. The SC reasons that in the collegium system, proposed in the NJAC, the chief justice is number one, second judge number two, third judge number three and the law minister is also one of the members. And, if a judge is appointed from that process, then if he’s hearing a case against the government, the litigant may have an apprehension about the fairness of the judge. That is the sum and substance of the ruling.
While dealing with India, one can have two views one, ‘Hindustan mein kuchh nahi ho sakta’ which has been going on for years. The other view is, ‘Yes, there are challenges, take them head on, create an atmosphere of enablement, inspire the people and the people of India will rise and deliver’. This is our attitude and how India is changing, I’ll give you just two examples of this the PM asked Indians who can afford to leave their gas subsidy, 1.24 crore Indians left their cooking gas subsidy on their own. That is the India which is emerging. Senior citizens are entitled to get subsidy in train travel. The PM asked those who can forego would they give up their right to the subsidy and 40 lakh Indians have voluntarily said we’ll not use subsidy, even though we are senior citizens. That’s how when you create an atmosphere of enablement, India changes. Jai Hind.
By Pradeep Mathur
