With India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) seen contributing 4% to GDPby 2030, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran on Monday said successful execution of the proposed DPI 2.0 roadmap will aid long-term growth and build a distributed resilience against hostile external shocks.
In its ‘DPI@2047 for Viksit Bharat’ roadmap report, NITI Frontier Tech Hub said India’s DPI ecosystem, already estimated to contribute nearly 1% to GDP, could account for as much as 4% by 2030 if the next phase of reforms is implemented swiftly.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Nageswaran said disruptions in West Asia have renewed concerns over India’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, whose prices and supply routes remain vulnerable to geopolitical tensions. The resulting fiscal and inflationary pressures hit small farmers, micro entrepreneurs and daily wage workers the hardest. He said India must offset such shocks through higher productivity and competitiveness.
“The broader lesson is if DPI 2.0 is executed with the urgency this moment demands, it will not merely serve India’s long-run development aspiration, it also will build a distributed economic resilience that any open economy needs when the external environment turns hostile,” he said.
The DPI 2.0 report said India is at a “once-in-a-generation inflection point” and called for immediate execution of the next stage of digital transformation to support the broader Viksit Bharat 2047 vision. It recommended four priority actions, beginning with decentralised execution led by states, while the Centre and NITI Aayog play the role of catalysts through funding, guidance, coordination and ecosystem support.
According to the roadmap, India’s diversity and scale make a one-size-fits-all model ineffective, with states better positioned to build local growth strategies through district-level programmes. It said locally adapted digital systems could help create stronger and self-sustaining regional economies.
The report also proposed collaborative two-year transformation cycles to scale DPI adoption across sectors. In the first year, selected “champion” states and Union Territories would undertake lighthouse pilot projects to identify workable models and demonstrate impact. In the second year, successful models would be replicated more widely while capacity-building efforts are expanded.
The first cycle for 2026-27 should focus on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and agriculture, sectors identified as having the largest livelihood impact potential. It suggested working with six champion states or UTs, with two each assigned to three sectoral transformations. Each participating state would identify one or two districts for pilot implementation.
The roadmap said at least one participating state should be selected from each of the five regions — north, south, east, west and northeast — to ensure balanced representation. It also called for building institutional capacity in states and the private sector to better understand and deploy DPI-led transformation models.
To steer the programme, the report recommended that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and NITI Aayog create a central coordination team, an expert advisory group covering DPI, artificial intelligence and sector specialists, and a pool of expert organisations to assist states.
It further proposed setting up a neutral global body in 2027 to deepen India’s international leadership in DPI by showcasing scalable models, supporting implementation in other countries and fostering collaboration on DPI and AI for public good.
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