Opinion
It’s time to double down on our digital expansion
Summary
- India’s internet coverage has expanded and successes been noted but we still have plenty of catching up to do with the rest of the world for our ambitions of a digital economy to be met
It’s noteworthy, the pace at which India’s internet economy has been growing. Yet, it’s stark just how closely its lopsided evolution mirrors our uneven economic expansion on the whole. Increasing internet penetration, widely affordable connectivity and monthly Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments headed above 10 billion (and worth over ₹15 trillion) are examples of the strides we have taken. The promise of basic digital enablers can also count on policy support in the form of data-security once privacy rules come to forge fairer—if not freer—online markets, a balance of scales best struck before forces of demand and supply get free play. We also have an e-com-aligned export policy. All this means we cannot afford to fall behind on broadening our internet base to reach everyone. Take internet users. Cheap data tariffs led a surge from 462 million in 2018 to 759 million users in 2022, a majority of our population, going by data from a report by Kantar and Internet and Mobile Association of India. This number is projected to rise to 900 million by 2025. Yet, on a global scorecard, our performance remains mid-range at best. As a proportion of headcount, World Bank data for 2021 shows we lag the world’s average. So while our success story of online bank transfers has duly been held up by India as a model for other countries to emulate, we must not lose sight of the big picture. If global comparisons of basics tell us anything, it is that we need to double down on our digital expansion efforts.
Counts of this nature are often disputed, but World Bank rankings are indicative all the same. Its country-wise data ranked India at No. 120 in 2021, with our internet penetration at 46%, not just below the world average of 63%, but also under the mean for lower middle-income countries. The UAE topped this chart with 100% penetration, while the UK was second with 97% and the US next with 92%. China, with a population not much larger than ours then, was at No. 104 with 73% penetration. While the net’s relatively sparse coverage of India need not get in the way of a digital boom, with a huge number already online, relatively slow data speeds could still act as a drag if new technologies like artificial intelligence come to overload our bandwidth. In any case, our tech industry interests demand that we keep pace with the world’s faster lot. At 53.2Mbps, the median fixed broadband speed in India lags what users get in places like Singapore, the UAE and even Chile, where it is well over 200Mbps (as captured by Speedtest.net). Clearly, we have plenty of work left to do: a lot more people need to be brought online and fewer left in the lurch of endless buffering.
What’s most worrying is the low reliability of internet access, as implied by our record on internet shutdowns. On this, India is an outlier. In 2022, the country had as many as 84 snap-offs, while the rest of the world had 99 (by the tally of Access Now). That’s a staggering 45% of the total and a problem that we must tackle. Security is almost always cited as a reason, but while threats do exist in the spread of fake news, etc, we also need clear protocols to be set for shutdowns on the basis of a proper cost-benefit analysis. Talk of an internet economy worth $1 trillion by 2030, with digital success a major contributor to overall value addition, can be heady. And India’s advances have indeed been remarkable. But we are yet to satisfactorily widen and solidify our internet base. We must move fast on multiple fronts.
