THE Modi Government’s effective use of digitalisation has won high praise the world over, and the latest to laud the initiative is United Nations General Assembly President Dennis Francis.
Highlighting this accomplishment of “Incredible India”, Francis said it had enabled India to achieve financial inclusion and poverty reduction and suggested that the lessons learned could be beneficially shared with the international community.
“Let me say first of all that since I’ve been to India, every time I think of India, I think ‘Incredible India’. And I mean this in all earnest,” he told the Press Trust of India (PTI) in the interview at the UN headquarters.
Interactions in India
Francis recalled his official visit to India in January, during which he held a bilateral meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and interacted with Government officials, civil society members and think-tanks.
The focus of his interactions was on sustainability, multilateralism, accessibility, and digital public infrastructure (DPI). The UN leader lauded India’s use of digitalisation to alleviate poverty and bring millions of people into the formal economic system “simply through the use of a handset and a digitalisation model.”
He cited the example of digitalisation helping Indian women, and farmers across the length and breadth of the country and in far-flung places to negotiate their prices, deal with banks and make payments without having to leave their homes, farmlands or areas.
Dennis Francis President,
United Nations General Assembly
“All of this is helping to make the economy of India much more competitive. So, I think this is an area in which India clearly has a comparative advantage and has lessons that can be shared with the international community,” Francis told the Indian news agency.
World Bank praise
He also pointed out that during his visit to India, he was impressed with the level of investments being made in digital infrastructure development. “I noted when I was in your country recently, I was really quite impressed with this – the extent of investment being made in infrastructure in India,” he said.
It is worth recalling that earlier, too, several internationally renowned institutions have heaped praise on India’s DPI for its transformative impact during the past 10 years under the Modi Government.
In its G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) document, the World Bank noted how India has developed a robust digital public goods infrastructure, with initiatives such as UPI (Unified Payments Interface), Jan Dhan, Aadhar, ONDC, and CoWin.
India has achieved financial inclusion targets in just six years which would otherwise have taken at least 47 long years, the document said.
MODI KI GUARANTEE Walking the talk in poverty eradication
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured people on several occasions that he won’t rest till poverty is wiped out of India. This is Modi’s Guarantee, and the PM is known for walking the talk.
A total of 24.82 crore people escaped multidimensional poverty during the last nine years and a Niti Aayog Discussion Paper credits this to multiple initiatives of the Government between 2013-14 and 2022-23.
According to the Discussion Paper, ‘Multidimensional Poverty in India since 2005-06’, India registered a significant decline in multidimensional poverty from 29.17 per cent in 2013-14 to 11.28 per cent in 2022-23. Uttar Pradesh – with 5.94 crore escaping – registered the largest decline followed by Bihar at 3.77 crore, Madhya Pradesh at 2.30 crore and Rajasthan at 1.87 crore.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is a globally recognised measure that captures poverty in multiple dimensions, beyond the monetary aspects. All its 12 indicators have recorded significant improvement during the study period.
