10 years of Digital India: Made many strides in digital payments, says Narendra Modi
Narendra Modi
on Tuesday said that the country has made several achievements in the
digital payments
system, led by collective efforts of all citizens.
'India has made many strides in digital payments, powered by the collective resolve of 140 crore Indians. Sectors like health and education have also benefited from this initiative,' Modi said on social media platform X.
The comments come following the completion of a decade of ambitious
Digital India
initiative, originally launched on July 1, 2015.
"Ten years ago, Digital India began as an initiative to transform our nation into a digitally empowered and technologically advanced society," Modi said on the microblogging site.
Under the 'Digital India' umbrella program, transformation of payment systems including Unified Payments Interface or
UPI
, a real-time payment system allows users to instantly transfer money between bank accounts using a mobile device.
The UPI platform recorded 1,867.7 crore transactions worth ₹24.77 lakh crore in April 2025.
India handled 49 per cent of global real-time transactions in 2023. UPI is now live in over seven countries, boosting global digital payments and financial inclusion, as per the ACI Worldwide Report 2024.
Several other countries are also looking to adopt this platform, to facilitate instant transactions.
Following the showcase during the G-20 Summit in New Delhi, more than 12 countries wanted to implement India's
digital public infrastructure
(DPI).
The foundation of India's Digital Public Infrastructure is based on the identity layer (Aadhaar), payments layer Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA).
India has also launched Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), as a part of ambition to democratize e-commerce. Under the pilot program across multiple cities, it aims to bring 30 million sellers and 10 million merchants online.
Over a period of a decade, internet connections in India increased to nearly 98 crore.
4.74 lakh 5G towers installed, covering 99.6 per cent of districts, according to the government statistics.
The number of total telephone subscribers in India increased to 1,192.03 million at the end of January 2025, the Telecom Regulator Authority of India, in its recent study said.
The digital economy contributed 11.74 per cent to the country's GDP in 2022–23 and is expected to reach 13.42 per cent in 2024–25, according to the State of India's Digital Economy Report 2024, released by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER).
The prestigious
BharatNet
program connected as many as 2.25 lakh gram panchayats (village blocks) with high-speed internet. It has a target to offer optic fibre-based digital connectivity to more than 6 lakh villages, providing government-to-citizen (G2C) and other utility services.
Powered by innovations in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and strong digital infrastructure, Digital India has created new opportunities, the statement added.
Ashwini Viashnaw-headed Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), launched two flagship initiatives --
India Semiconductor Mission
(ISM) and
IndiaAI Mission
-- to further strengthen India's leadership in Global South in line with the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision
The semiconductor mission aims to build a strong semiconductor and display ecosystem, offering the world a strong alternative to China and Taiwan.
With a ₹76,000-crore outlay, the mission supports local chip and display manufacturing. It offers up to 50 per cent support for fabs and incentives for chip design and production.
As many as six semiconductor projects worth ₹1.55 lakh crore have been approved under the initiative.
Unveiled in March 2024, the IndiaAI Mission aims to build a strong and inclusive AI ecosystem with a budget of ₹10,371.92 crore over five years. It focuses on enabling access to computing, innovation, improving datasets, funding startups, and ensuring ethical AI use.
In May this year, the national compute power crossed 34,000 GPUs, indicating a robust AI infrastructure growth.
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