View: Digital India must broaden its base

India now has 75 crore internet connections, of which 70 crore are broadband connections. This represents around 50 crore subscribers — the same person can have multiple mobile phones, each with a broadband connection, plus a fixed-line connection. But the number of broadband users would be significantly higher than the number of subscribers, as many connections would be shared, say, at cyber cafés. As high a proportion as 97% of internet connections in India are through mobile phones.

This is still Digital India, as Bharat, accounting for two-thirds of the population, accounts for one-third the internet connections. Within these limitations, amazing things are possible and are being actualised. The government launched GST with a digital operating framework. The government has innovated services such as Jeevan Pramaan, for pensioners to obtain a digital life certificate remotely. All states should enable their pension services to use digital life certificates. A plan to digitise health records and make them portable across the land is underway. Ration cards are already portable. Many more such services will flourish and make life simpler and government services more transparent.