The primary focus should be rural population for India

Just when the country has started warming up to the idea of a 'Digital India’, it is going through another transformation which is the rapid proliferation of smartphones. The once ubiquitous 'desktop-first’ era is rapidly drawing to a close as smartphones have caused a major shift in our lifestyle and disrupted the digital space.

For most digital consumers in India, mobile is fast becoming the preferred way of accessing the Internet and consuming digital content. We have reached a stage wherein no matter in what sector the company operates in be it E-commerce, entertainment, E-learning, media etc. to effectively engage the vast majority of Indian consumers, unless you have a mobile-first strategy in place. 

Digital payment platform contribution to Digital India

Digital payment as a financial transaction platform emerged around a decade ago. It is the basis to implement digitization in the country. Adoption was slow due to the nature of the mobile technology supporting the concept. However, recent significant advances on the technology front have made this area one of burgeoning growth in the financial services sector. Services-based and text-based payment and proximity device communications are appearing worldwide. Widespread use of smartphones and consumer comfort with mobile devices for more than communication are the principal drivers of a resurgent and increased interest in mobile payments. In addition, advances in software and hardware security techniques have made trusted financial transactions possible from these devices.  

The increasing penetration of smartphones and internets are significantly contributing to the growth of e-commerce. The compound growth rate is expected to touch $36.7 billion by 2020. DataWind is doing its bit by providing affordable products with free internet of one year. To reach out to tier II & tier III market, we are using our patent technology to reduce the data used to load a webpage so as to reduce the cost involved.

Obstacles which needs to be removed on mobile phone for meeting the objectives of Digital India 

We live in this present reality where Internet and digital wrongdoings are indivisible foes. The entire architecture should be designed in such a way that there is proper authentication done of all the documents put online by citizens and it is available to the right users at any time they want with the right authentication.

Broadband affordability and accessibility is another big challenge, considering this DataWind is trying to bridge the digital gap between the rural and urban people by offering products that are durable, have free education content, free internet browsing and available at a price equivalent to a pair of shoes. 

One needs to remember certain ground realities India is a diversified country, in terms of language, culture, laws which vary from states to states. Complete integration, that is integration of technology and language, is one of the principle challenges the mission would confront in its execution.

Countries which have done extremely well on mobile phone/digital payments platform

Singapore, Sweden and Hong Kong are seen as the biggest 'stand out countries’. India has a populace of more than 1.2 billion, however there's still a considerable measure of potential for development in broadband use. There is a call for more prominent advanced framework. So there's still space for digitization to create in India. There is immense capacity for innovation which needs to be worked upon for better performance. India needs to develop a world-class digital infrastructure, through public-private partnerships. 

DataWind strongly believes that for a country like India, the primary focus should be rural population which counts for 68.84 per cent. We intend to offer bandwidth cost advantage to consumers to the mentioned populace. The company is interested in rolling out the services with a primary interest in India's rural markets in each circle which continue to be under served. Our target is Rs 99 a year tariff for unlimited Internet browsing across any site via MVNO services.

Role of security both in the mobile phone ecosystem and digital payment platform for meeting the objectives of Digital India

Cyber security must become an integral part of our national security. Security and cyber wellness needs to be addressed at the policy and architecture level as the government and industry work towards designing solutions and building the country’s digital infrastructure. Security and data privacy need to be the foundation of all process flows that get designed for Digital India. The citizens at large needs to be educated about the do’s and don’ts of safe keeping as part of the digital literacy training that’s imparted to make one person per house hold e-literate. 

Also, in the back-end, a strong, intelligent and solid detection system needs to be in place that can identify any potential threats and trigger the appropriate corrective action. The implementation of a secure Digital India will need to adopt an end to end approach.

Pravin Prashant
pravin@varindia.com