TOWARDS A DIGITAL INDIA: AN OVERVIEW OF CHALLENGES, SUCCESSES AND OPPORTUNITIES

As one of the world’s foremost emerging markets, India holds great potential in areas of trade, technology, innovation and manufacturing. An important facilitator for this would be the digital connectivity and permittivity in the country. Digitalization of processes and services across its length and breadth would help pave the way for more industrialization and development in the fastest growing economy. It is important to note that India has made rapid strides in this and achieved a lot of digital permittivity. While the huge population of India and its industrious populace offer a huge opportunity in this direction, many challenges remain in navigating this path. Digitalization ultimately has to reach the grass root level and this paper examines these aspects on a broad scale.

There are a few possible reasons for this. One could be that many activities, whether industrial or domestic, have not yet been digitalized. Another is the fear that of disruption that digitalization will bring. Notwithstanding these, digitalization initiatives usually focus only on a particular segment or a few specific segments of a process and not on the entire assembly line, so to say.

Extending digitalization to rural areas:
Another important challenge regarding widespread digitalization is the extension of digital services and digital literacy to rural areas in the country. For digitalization to occur, it is important for the public to have access to efficient internet access and digital devices. In rural areas, this has not yet been achieved on a large scale. Internet access is not ubiquitous and has certainly not penetrated the home of every family. Moreover, existing internet facilities do not provide state-of-the-art technologies and connectivity. Furthermore, there is also a lack of digital devices that can cater to the technologies in vogue.
Another significant challenge emanating from the urban-rural divide is the illiteracy levels in general and digital illiteracy in particular. Unlike the urban societies, there is a lack of inherent urgency to digitalize among the rural populations. This should be attributed to the low awareness of and exposure to digital practices.

Adapting to 'digital' in day-to-day life:
One of the major reasons for the acceleration in digitalization that has taken place over the last two decades is the push to modernize lives and experience easier ways of doing tasks. While this is true in the case of India as well, there is also a considerable reluctance among Indians to truly digitalize their lives. Digitalization is largely restricted to mainstream processes but it has not truly penetrated Indian lives. This is a result of the inertia stemming from decades of non-digital practices, compounded by uncertainty and doubt over the efficiency and security of digital methods.
Digital Transactions and concern of privacy: Digital transactions are gaining traction among a large section of Indians today. However, most of these transactions are relatively small scale. Not all transactions are also digital. This is due to the fact that there are major privacy concerns regarding online transactions.

Signs Of Success:
There was a major impetus given to digitalization through the Digital India initiative with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society. Growing awareness among all sections of society in this regard has been a major contributor towards digitalization in India. In this section, we examine some of the areas in which India has displayed significant growth contributing to digitalization. each on looking for product information and playing games. By November 2019, this had respectively increased to 39%, 20%, 19%, 8% and 9% [3].

Digital Transactions:
The total value of online transactions in India has grown from USD 28845 million in 2017 to USD 40340 million in 2018 to USD 55136 million in 2019 [3]. The suspected motivation behind this could be the fact that consumer demands for digital payments grew by 106% from Jan 2019 to Jan 2020 and also the 383% growth in digital transactions throughout the country [10] In December 2020 alone, the transactions through electronic transfer alone totaled Rs 2558304.2 lakh crore [11].

Online Education:
Online education is another industry which has displayed considerable growth. Between 2015 and 2018, there has been a six-fold increase in the number of students whose education is facilitated online. In 2019, the number of rural users at 227 million was higher than that of urban users, which was 2015 million. The value of the Indian online education market was expected to grow from USD 247 million in 2016 to USD 1.96 million in 2021 [2].

GovernmentIntiatives:
The curation of Aadhaar cards detailing digital identity has benefitedmore than 1 billion Indians. UPI(Unified payments Interface) witnessed 800 million transactions with a total value of Rs 1.33 lakh crorein March 2019 alone Opportunities:-Youth Population: As of 2019, India lead the world in terms of youth potential and it supply pool. About 65% of the population is of the age group 15-35 and this lead is projected to last for the next forty years [5]. This age group is also the most fertile for promoting technology and innovation and this evinces a huge opportunity for India. Our youth population is thus our biggest opportunity as far as digitalization is concerned.

Growing want of 'ease' of operation:
This is perhaps the most important reason that has driven digitalization across the world and will continue to do so. In a rapidly growing economy like India, it will give greater emphasis to the digital drive. The growing literacy and modernization will certainly lend a helping hand in this regard.

E-commerce:
The An industry growing at such a fast rate promises great digital transformation at the grass root level and will usher in digital literacy among the masses.

Online Education:
Online education, as highlighted in the previous section, while displaying significant signs of growth, has also attempted to touch almost all levels of education (primary, secondary and so on) and also, in a way, forced the young population to come to terms with learning through the online mode. This has been providential in increasing awareness of 'digital' mode and also increased digital literacy. In the future, it can be expected to create a greater impact, especially in the post-COVID period.

Conclusion:-
Digitalization is a much needed phenomenon in the context of India. Challenges abound in this direction and it must be noted that they will continue to be impediments in the immediate future as well. At the same time, India has also made rapid strides in digitalization with a plethora of public initiatives and private undertakings. There is a sentiment of urgency in adopting digital practices for greater efficiency and growth among the population, which bodes well for an aspiring India. The opportunities must also not be discounted, with our large population offering great advantage in this regard. The success of this initiative in the future and the disruption offered by 'digital' can be considered as an area of future research.