Opinion | The Covid-19 crisis could bring the country up to digital speed

The Covid-19 pandemic gives us a chance to re-evaluate the worth of two major initiatives of the Narendra Modi government: demonetization and digitization. While the first was an economic failure, with the medium-term costs outweighing the benefits, the latter has been a resounding success. And to the extent demonetization forced us to think digital, you cannot deny it as one factor in the rise of the digital economy.

The importance of digitization in a pandemic cannot be exaggerated when we are repeatedly told to maintain social distance and work from home in order to avoid infection. Consider how nigh impossible it would be to avoid contact with retail cashiers and point-of-sale (PoS) terminals if we were to use credit cards and cash to pay for our daily necessities. Today, most bill payments have moved online, and barring older people, who may prefer to pay their electricity bills at physical counters, digitization is delivering in spades.