G20 Panel on digital public infrastructure bats for global plug & play use
G20 task force on digital public infrastructure (DPI) has suggested that countries use plug-and-play models to deploy certain DPI while ensuring their sovereignty and data ownership, exhorting them to make their existing infrastructure universally applicable for common good.
Releasing the task force's report on Monday, India's G20 sherpa Amitabh Kant said the country's fast-growing DPI has enabled it to achieve in nine years what would have taken it 50 years to realise without the DPI.
India's push for interoperable DPI during its G20 presidency last year had faced resistance from developed countries, who feared it could undermine the growth of global private payments entities. The plug-and-play method mooted by the task force appears to be aimed at addressing this fear.
Kant and Infosys chairman Nandan Nilekani were co-chairs of the task force, set up in January 2023, to «oversee and facilitate achieving India's G20 presidency agenda and priorities on DPI and financial inclusion».
In the report's preface, Kant and Nilekani dwelt on India's DPI progress. The country has so far achieved 1.4 billion Aadhaar enrolments, facilitated more than 10 million daily e-KYC transactions, granted access to bank accounts to about 500 million individuals and effected direct benefit transfers across various schemes that helped the government save around $41 billion by plugging leakages.
Body to harness DPI
The task force highlighted the need to identify an existing body to foster and harness the DPI ecosystem across various
