Minister of IT, Communication and Electronics reveals new Digital Profile of India
Ravi Shankar Prasad, India's Minister for IT, Communication, and Electronics has made public the new digital profile of India. This includes data on mobile phone/smartphone users, active Aadhar numbers, and internet users. These statistics sound encouraging when gauged. These statistics were made public at the ongoing Indian Mobile Congress (IMC 2019).
New digital profile of India
As per official data shared by Prasad, the Digital Profile of India comprises, with data, of mobile phone/smartphone users – 1.18 billion users. Then, there are 1.24 billion digital identities (Aadhar). Finally, there are as many as 630 million internet users in India. These are encouraging statistics as far as Digital India is concerned. Earlier, in the IMC 2019 event, Prasad has also stated that the number of digital payments transactions in India had increased to 3.32 billion as of now, up from 980 million digital payments transactions in November 2016 – the year that saw demonetization.
At this juncture, with Digital India penetrating all spheres of life rapidly, it is worth noting that though not everything is rosy, there are some advantages. Most prominent of these include the likes of bank account – to- bank account transactions. Under these circumstances, privacy and transparency in transactions are maintained. Then, it also empowers vendors (even small vendors are benefitted and empowered with PoS machines). Digital payment applications (Apps) such as Google Pay, PayTM (a digital payment wallet), BHIM UPI and more, even ensure that users get cashbacks on transactions. This is dependent on the transaction value, generally.
Hence, at this point in time, the statistics presented by the minister are surely encouraging, and not an exaggeration. Digital India also comprises of cashless transactions. These could practically empower people to use technology in an effective manner.
