India aims for self-certification in digital infrastructure and goods

India is collaborating with international forums such as the UN and G20 to develop partnerships that will certify, register, test, and standardize Indian Digital Public Infrastructure (DPIs), and Public Goods (DPGs).

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India is actively cooperating with multilateral platforms like the UN and G20 to forge alliances that will enable the certification, registration, testing, and benchmarking DPIs, DPGs, according to the two unknown sources.

The effective outcomes of the government’s popular DPI programmes like CoWin, UPI, Digilocker, and Diksha (national digital infrastructure for teachers) have propelled New Delhi to seek its own evaluation and testing system for both DPIs and DPGs.

At present, the Digital Public Goods Alliance is the only multilateral organization that offers guidance, rates, and evaluates DPIs. This UN-backed initiative facilitates the utilization and discovery of open-source technologies. The government’s strategy to institute a certification, testing, and registration process for DPIs and DPGs not only caters to local platforms but also extends to those developed elsewhere.

Currently, India’s DPIs and DPGs have been deployed in other countries. For instance, CoWin, tracking COVID-19 vaccination, is in operation in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Jamaica.

The expansion of the UPI payment platform’s outreach has notably increased. The global division of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has collaborated with nations like the UK, the UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bhutan, and Nepal.

With a network of over 350 banks, UPI has over 260 million unique users. CoWin, on the other hand, has more than 1.1 billion registered users. The Diksha app played a pivotal role, conducting more than 500 million learning sessions for educators during the pandemic lockdown.