The G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion document prepared by World Bank has lauded the transformative impact of Digital Public Infrastructure DPIs in India over the past decade. DPI has a transformative impact on India, extending far beyond inclusive finance. On Financial Inclusion, lauding India’s DPI approach the World Bank document notes that India has achieved in just six years what would have taken about five decades. The document highlighted the groundbreaking measures taken by Modi government and the pivotal role of government policy and regulation in shaping the DPI landscape. It said, Jandhan-Aadhar-Mobile JAM Trinity has propelled financial inclusion rate from 25 per cent in 2008 to over 80 percent of adults in last six years, a journey shortened by up to 47 years, thanks to DPIs. The document categorically notes that while DPIs’ role in this leapfrogging is undoubtable, other ecosystem variables and policies that build on the availability of DPIs were critical.
These included interventions to create a more enabling legal and regulatory framework, national policies to expand account ownership and leveraging Aadhaar for identity verification. It said, since its launch, the number of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana PMJDY accounts opened tripled from 147.2 million in March 2015 to 462 million by June 2022. Women own 56 percent of these accounts, more than 260 million. The document said, Jan Dhan Plus program encourages low-income women to save, resulting in over 12 million women customers as of April 2023 and a 50 percent increase in average balances in just five months, as against the entire portfolio in the same time period. It is estimated that by engaging 100 million low-income women in savings activities, public sector banks in India can attract approximately 25 thousand crore rupees (3.1 billion dollars) in deposits
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