Systems that allow citizens to access essential services without needing connections or privilege
In December, from the campus of IIM Bangalore, two institutions offered something rare in the story of India's digital transformation: not a celebration, but a reckoning. The inaugural 'State of Digital Public Infrastructure in India' report, released jointly by Protean eGov Technologies and IIM Bangalore's Centre for Digital Public Goods, examines the identity, payments, and data-sharing systems that now quietly govern the daily lives of hundreds of millions. It is an attempt to move past triumphalism and ask, with academic seriousness, what has truly been built — and what remains unfinished.
- India's digital infrastructure has reached a scale that demands scrutiny: UPI alone accounts for nearly half of all real-time payments processed anywhere on Earth.
- The report surfaces a tension between the narrative of success and the harder reality of uneven maturity — financial services and healthcare sit at very different stages of readiness.
- Account Aggregators have crossed 2.2 billion user consents, yet the friction points in data governance and cross-system compatibility signal that scale alone does not equal seamlessness.
- The JAM trinity that anchored a decade of progress has evolved into a modular ecosystem — Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, ABDM, ONDC — each piece designed to interlock, but integration remains the unfinished work.
- By committing to an annual assessment, the authors are attempting to replace episodic celebration with sustained accountability, tracking not just what works but what still strains under the weight of a billion users.
On the IIM Bangalore campus in December, Protean eGov Technologies and the Centre for Digital Public Goods released the inaugural 'State of Digital Public Infrastructure in India' — a sector-by-sector examination of the identity systems, payments networks, and data-sharing platforms woven into everyday life for hundreds of millions of Indians. The timing carried meaning: Protean is marking three decades of building this unglamorous, population-scale architecture. The report was framed not as a victory lap but as a baseline — an academic grounding for what has often been celebrated in broad strokes but rarely examined with rigor.
The numbers are striking. UPI processed roughly 200 lakh crore rupees in fiscal year 2024 and now handles nearly half of all real-time payments globally. Account Aggregators have accumulated 2.2 billion consents and connected 112 million linked accounts. Direct Benefit Transfers reach 328 schemes across 56 ministries, all anchored to Aadhaar. In healthcare, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is building national registries while teleconsultation platform eSanjeevani continues to scale.
What the report traces is an evolution from the JAM trinity — Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and mobile connectivity — into something more modular and interconnected: UPI, DigiLocker, Account Aggregators, OCEN, ONDC, and ABDM, each designed to work with the others and to serve as rails upon which private enterprise can build.
Protean's Suresh Sethi described DPI not as technology but as a force for dignity — systems that allow citizens to access essential services without needing privilege or connections. Professor R Srinivasan of IIM Bangalore saw in the data a structural transformation: the same infrastructure that verifies identity and moves money is now reshaping how people access credit and healthcare.
The authors identified the conditions for the next phase of growth: deeper sector integration, stronger data governance, wider system compatibility, and collaboration across what they call the Samaj-Sarkar-Bazaar ecosystem — society, government, and business together. By making this an annual exercise, the two institutions are building something quieter but perhaps equally important: a steady knowledge foundation for a country still in the act of constructing its digital future.
On the IIM Bangalore campus in December, two institutions released a study that attempts something rarely done in India's digital world: a clear-eyed assessment of how the country's foundational infrastructure actually works, stripped of the usual triumphalism. Protean eGov Technologies and the Centre for Digital Public Goods at IIM Bangalore unveiled the inaugural 'State of Digital Public Infrastructure in India' report, a sector-by-sector examination of identity systems, payments networks, and data-sharing platforms that have become woven into everyday life for hundreds of millions of Indians.
The timing carried weight. Protean is marking three decades of building these systems—the unglamorous, population-scale digital architecture that most people never think about until they need it. The report itself is framed as a baseline, an academic grounding for what has often been celebrated in broad strokes but rarely examined with rigor. It focuses first on two sectors with starkly different maturity levels: financial services and healthcare. The authors wanted to move past the narrative of success and ask harder questions about where friction still exists, where the systems work seamlessly, and where they strain.
The numbers tell part of the story. UPI, India's real-time payments system, now handles nearly half of all real-time payments globally and processed roughly 200 lakh crore rupees in the fiscal year ending in 2024. Account Aggregators—the infrastructure that lets people share financial data securely—have accumulated 2.2 billion consents from users and connected 112 million linked accounts. Direct Benefit Transfers, the mechanism for delivering government aid, now reach 328 different schemes across 56 ministries, all anchored to Aadhaar identity verification. In healthcare, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is building national registries while eSanjeevani, a teleconsultation platform, continues to scale.
What the report traces is an evolution. India began with what became known as the JAM trinity—Jan Dhan (bank accounts), Aadhaar (identity), and Mobile connectivity—a foundation laid roughly a decade ago. From that base, the country has built something more modular and interconnected: Aadhaar itself, UPI for payments, DigiLocker for document storage, Account Aggregators for financial data consent, DEPA for data empowerment, OCEN for credit access, ONDC for open commerce networks, and ABDM for health records. Each piece was designed to work with the others, creating what the report calls a common digital foundation that private companies and startups can build upon.
Suresh Sethi, who leads Protean, framed the work in human terms. He described DPI not as technology but as a force for dignity and equity—systems that allow citizens to access essential services without needing connections or privilege. The architecture is open, he noted, and increasingly powered by artificial intelligence. The vision is a future where every person can move through the digital economy with security and ease.
Professor R Srinivasan from IIM Bangalore offered the academic perspective. What the study reveals, he said, is a structural transformation in how a nation organizes itself. Digital Public Infrastructure has evolved from being a collection of separate utilities into a unifying architecture—the same rails that verify identity and process payments are now reshaping how people access credit and healthcare. The report aims to help India understand the scale of what has been built and to encourage deeper thinking about what comes next.
The authors identified what will determine the next phase of growth: deeper integration across sectors, stronger governance of data, wider compatibility between systems, and thoughtful deployment of emerging technologies. They also emphasized the need for collaboration across what they call the Samaj-Sarkar-Bazaar ecosystem—society, government, and business working together. By making this an annual assessment, Protean and IIM Bangalore are trying to create a steady knowledge foundation, a way to track not just what works but what still needs fixing as India continues building what it describes as an open, inclusive, and sovereign digital economy.
Citas Notables
DPI is not technology, but a quiet force of dignity, equity and opportunity—systems where every citizen can access essential services seamlessly, securely and without privilege— Suresh Sethi, MD and CEO, Protean eGov Technologies
We are witnessing a structural transformation in how a nation organizes its social and economic systems. DPI has evolved into a unifying architecture that enables citizens, institutions, and markets to interact with unprecedented ease and trust— Professor R Srinivasan, Chairperson, Centre for Digital Public Goods, IIM Bangalore
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does a study like this matter now, in 2025? Hasn't India already proven DPI works?
Proven it works at scale, yes. But there's a difference between something working and understanding how it works, where it's breaking, what's next. This report is trying to move past the celebration into the actual mechanics.
The numbers are striking—49 percent of global real-time payments through UPI. That's not just India's success, that's reshaping global finance.
It is. But the report isn't really about bragging. It's asking: now that we've built this, how do we make sure it serves everyone equally? How do we connect it to healthcare, to credit, to the sectors where people still struggle?
You mentioned friction points. What are they? Where does the system still strain?
The report doesn't spell out every failure, but the fact that they're focusing on healthcare alongside finance tells you something. Healthcare DPI is much younger, much less mature. There's real work to do there.
This idea of a 'middle path'—open infrastructure but with national priorities intact. That sounds like a careful balance.
It is. India is trying to say: we'll build the rails publicly, we'll let private companies innovate on top, but we won't let it become extractive. That's harder than it sounds.
What does 'annual assessment' mean for the future?
It means they're treating this as an ongoing conversation, not a one-time report. They want to track whether the system is actually becoming more equitable, more integrated, more resilient. That's accountability.
And if it doesn't? If the next report shows things getting worse?
Then India has to reckon with whether its DPI is actually serving its stated purpose—dignity and equity—or just becoming another way to concentrate power.