Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is reshaping how nations govern, transact, and deliver services in the twenty-first century, and India has emerged from being a large user of digital systems to becoming a builder of population-scale digital architecture that serves as a global benchmark.
What distinguishes India's approach is its remarkable combination of scale, openness, and integration, with identity, payments, and data exchange connected through interoperable public rails that support welfare delivery, economic activity, and state capacity for over 1.4 billion people.
The United Nations defines DPI as a set of foundational digital systems that form the backbone of modern societies, enabling secure and seamless interaction between people, businesses, and governments.
For digital infrastructure to deliver public value, it must be inclusive, interoperable, and governed in the public interest, and India's experience offers a working demonstration of what population-scale DPI can achieve at very low cost.
As countries around the world search for trusted and inclusive digital pathways, India's experience is drawing sustained attention, with the Government of India signing Memoranda of Understanding with 24 countries for cooperation on India Stack and Digital Public Infrastructure as of February 2026.
This comprehensive transformation demonstrates that digital infrastructure can be designed as a public good rather than a closed platform, showing that inclusion and efficiency can advance together.
India's Digital Public Infrastructure did not emerge overnight but was seeded through a deliberate convergence of identity, banking, and connectivity known as the JAM trinity. Jan Dhan bank accounts, Aadhaar enrollment, and widespread mobile phone penetration created the base layer for India's digital transformation, connecting individuals to the state in a direct and verifiable manner.
Through JAM, welfare benefits began moving straight into bank accounts, intermediaries were reduced, delays narrowed, and leakage declined, laying the foundation for what would later evolve into a comprehensive DPI ecosystem.
Aadhaar introduced a biometric-based digital identity platform for residents across the country, enabling unique identification and secure authentication for efficient service delivery.
As of March 2026, more than 144 crore Aadhaar numbers had been generated, reflecting the platform's massive scale.
Demonstrating its growing importance in everyday operations, the platform facilitated more than 2,707 crore authentication transactions in 2024–25. Identity became portable, verification became near-instant, and access to services became more reliable and transparent.
Over 2,240 social welfare schemes of the government use Aadhaar to securely and uniquely provide benefits and services to beneficiaries.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, launched in August 2014 as the National Mission for Financial Inclusion, set out to give every unbanked adult in India a bank account, a financial identity, and access to essential services such as credit, insurance, and pensions.
The number of accounts grew from 14.72 crore in 2015 to 57.71 crore as of March 2026. Deposits increased from ₹15,670 crore in March 2015 to ₹2.94 lakh crore by March 2026. A total of 39.98 crore RuPay debit cards were issued to beneficiaries, significantly widening financial participation.
Financial participation widened, and savings entered the formal system, strengthening economic agency for millions of previously excluded citizens.
Connectivity completed the triangle, with 85.5 percent of Indian households owning at least one smartphone by 2026. The mobile phone became a bank, a classroom, and a gateway to public services.
The number of wireless telephone subscribers reached 125.87 crore at the end of December 2025. Fifth-generation (5G) mobile services are now available in 99.9 percent of districts, covering 85 percent of the population.
As of December 2025, 5.18 lakh 5G base transceiver stations had been installed nationwide.
This extensive digital reach ensured that identity and banking were not confined to urban centers but became accessible across rural and urban India alike.
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UPI has transformed retail payments into a seamless digital experience, enabling instant, interoperable, and secure transactions between individuals and merchants in real time. In January 2026 alone,
UPI processed 21.70 billion transactions worth over ₹28.33 lakh crore, reflecting its deep integration into everyday commerce. A total of 691 banks are live on the UPI platform, underscoring its broad institutional adoption.
The International Monetary Fund, in its June 2025 report on growing retail digital payments, recognized UPI as the world's largest retail fast payment system by transaction volume.
According to ACI Worldwide’s 2024 report, "Prime Time for Real Time," India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) contributes nearly 49% of the world’s real-time payment transactions. Within the country, UPI processes approximately 81% of all retail payment transactions by volume, making it the most widely used platform for both person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) digital payments.
Annual transaction volume expanded from just 2 crore transactions in FY 2016-17 to over 24,162 crore transactions in FY 2025-26, representing an almost 12,000-fold surge in transaction volume.
Monthly UPI transactions crossed 2,000 crore in August 2025, reaching 2,001 crore transactions, signaling a new scale of adoption.
December 2025 recorded 2,163 crore transactions, the highest monthly transaction volume in UPI's decade-long journey. Over the course of the calendar year 2025, UPI processed approximately 22,000 crore transactions in total, translating into a daily average of about 60 crore transactions.
As of January 2026, PhonePe leads with 9,913.63 million transactions, followed by Google Pay at 7,229.11 million. The gap between the top two and the rest of the ecosystem is stark, with Paytm clocking 1,659.49 million transactions.
UPI has surpassed global payment networks, reinforcing India's position as the world leader in instant, secure, and inclusive digital payments.
PFMS has strengthened transparency and control in public expenditure as a web-based online transaction system that enables end-to-end monitoring of government funds and electronic payments to implementing agencies and beneficiaries.
In December 2014, it was mandated for payment, accounting, and reporting under Direct Benefit Transfer. This reform helped remove duplicate and fake beneficiaries and reduce leakages significantly.
The government saved more than ₹4.31 lakh crore between 2015 and March 2024 through PFMS-enabled Direct Benefit Transfer. As of January 2026, the cumulative amount transferred through Direct Benefit Transfer has crossed ₹49.09 lakh crore, signaling a shift towards targeted and accountable welfare delivery.
This represents a fundamental transformation in how government welfare reaches citizens, eliminating intermediaries and ensuring benefits reach intended beneficiaries directly.
Launched in 2015, DigiLocker introduced a secure digital document wallet for citizens, allowing individuals to store, access, and share authenticated electronic documents with consent-based access. The platform ensures authenticity and reduces the use of fake documents. As of March 5, 2026, DigiLocker had 67.63 crore users.
By March 2026, over 950 crore documents had been issued through the platform, reflecting its growing role in public administration. More than 675 crore e-documents have been issued by government agencies.
This represents over 4x Japan's population in registered users, making it one of the world's largest digital document repositories. Citizens can retrieve critical lifelong records anytime and from anywhere, fundamentally changing how Indians interact with official documentation.
CoWIN was launched on January 16, 2021, as the digital backbone of India's COVID-19 vaccination program, connecting vaccine manufacturers, administrators, healthcare workers, and beneficiaries across public and private sectors on a single platform. Managing over 220 crore doses, CoWIN brought transparency and efficiency to one of the world's largest vaccination drives.
More than 950 million citizens registered on the CoWIN portal through online and on-site modes, scalable up to one billion plus citizens. Over 1.6 billion doses of vaccine were administered and duly recorded on CoWIN, with more than 20.5 million vaccination sessions held across the country.
Vaccination sessions were conducted across more than 470,000 centers, with 73% in rural areas. More than 84.7 crore CoWIN beneficiaries were seeded with Aadhaar among the total 104 crore between January 2021 to September 2022.
Real-time data tracking improved coordination and public trust, with its design and execution drawing international interest. Several countries have examined CoWIN as a model for digital public health systems. India extended its digital health platform beyond national borders by offering CoWIN as open-source software to the world at no cost.
The platform's success demonstrated the ability to coordinate complex public health logistics at scale, with India offering the CoWIN system as a public good.
Launched in November 2019, eSanjeevani expanded access to healthcare through telemedicine, enabling remote doctor-to-patient consultations, particularly in rural and underserved regions. The platform reduces travel costs and waiting time while extending specialist advice to distant communities.
As of March 5, 2026, eSanjeevani has served 45.42 crore patients and onboarded 2.3 lakh healthcare providers. Teleconsultation has moved from pilot to mainstream public health service, fundamentally transforming how healthcare is delivered in India's remote regions.
This represents one of the world's largest telemedicine platforms, democratizing access to quality healthcare regardless of geographic location.
Launched in 2017, DIKSHA is the national platform for school education, an initiative of the National Council for Educational Research and Training under the Ministry of Education. The platform has been adopted by almost all States and Union Territories, along with central autonomous bodies and boards including CBSE.
As of March 5, 2026, 566 crore learning sessions had been delivered through the platform. It has 2.11 crore registered users, with course enrollments standing at 18.52 crore.
The platform has recorded 14.71 crore completions and issued 12.69 crore certificates. Education is designed to be accessible, engaging, and tailored to individual learners, extending beyond classrooms to support teachers, students, and administrators alike.
Launched in 2022, the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is an open network designed to democratize digital commerce by connecting buyers and sellers through interoperable platforms rather than a single marketplace. It expands market access, reduces entry barriers, and enables wider participation, particularly for small businesses.
As of December 2025, there are a total of 1.16 lakh+ retail sellers live on ONDC from over 630+ cities and towns across India. ONDC aims to provide an open-source platform that integrates buyers, sellers, logistics, and payment service providers on a single network.
The network is designed to make e-commerce accessible to all, especially small and medium enterprises, by lowering entry barriers and reducing platform dependency.
The Government eMarketplace has digitized public procurement and widened participation in government contracting, providing an online platform for transparent and efficient procurement of goods and services by government entities.
As of November 2025, nearly 3.27 crore orders had been processed with a cumulative Gross Merchandise Value exceeding ₹16.41 lakh crore.
The platform supports over 10,894 product categories and 348 service categories, with more than 1.67 lakh buyer organizations onboard. Over 24 lakh sellers and service providers have completed their profiles, including more than 11 lakh Micro and Small Enterprises.
MSMEs contribute 44.8 percent of the cumulative order value and have received orders worth over ₹7.35 lakh crore. This demonstrates how DPI empowers small businesses to participate in government contracting at unprecedented scale.
Launched in 2017, UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) was designed to advance mobile governance in India, providing a single-window mobile and web platform to access services from central, state, and local government bodies. Citizens can use UMANG to access services such as EPFO balance and claims, PAN and Aadhaar services, DigiLocker access, utility bill payments, pension services, scholarship applications, passport-related services, driving license services, exam results, and more.
As of March 5, 2026, UMANG recorded 10.25 crore user registrations and 723.36 crore transactions. More than 2,400 government services are available on the portal, making it a key interface between citizens and the state.
The e-Courts project is a pan-India Mission Mode initiative under the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice, seeking to make judicial processes more efficient, transparent, and accessible through Information and Communication Technology. Phase I (2011-2015) focused on basic computerization and internal connectivity, computerizing 14,249 courts and installing Local Area Networks in 13,683 courts.
Phase II (2015-2023) shifted towards ICT-enabled service delivery for citizens, introducing Wide Area Network connectivity, stakeholder training, eSewa Kendras, and computerization of District Legal Services Authorities. In September 2023, the Union Cabinet approved Phase III for the period 2023-2027 with an outlay of ₹7,210 crore.
This phase advances digital and paperless courts, comprehensive digitization of legacy records and pending cases, and expands video conferencing facilities across courts, jails, and hospitals. The integration of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Optical Character Recognition supports case pendency analysis and forecasting of litigation trends.
As of February 2026, the Government of India has signed Memoranda of Understanding and agreements with 24 countries for cooperation on India Stack and Digital Public Infrastructure. These partnerships focus on sharing technical knowledge and supporting replication of digital governance platforms, with areas of cooperation including digital identity, digital payments, data exchange frameworks, and service delivery systems.
The 24 countries include Armenia, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Antigua & Barbuda, Papua New Guinea, Trinidad & Tobago, Tanzania, Kenya, Cuba, Colombia, Lao PDR, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Gambia, Fiji, Guyana, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Lesotho, Maldives, Mongolia, and Malaysia.
India's payment infrastructure has crossed national boundaries, with UPI now live in 8 countries including the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, France, Mauritius, and Qatar. Its international adoption is easing remittances, improving payment efficiency, and expanding financial inclusion.
To facilitate structured cooperation, India Stack Global was established as a dedicated platform to showcase India's DPI solutions and support adoption by partner countries. The portal provides access to 18 key digital platforms for adoption by friendly nations.
During its G20 Presidency in 2023, India placed Digital Public Infrastructure at the center of the development agenda. The G20 New Delhi Leaders' Declaration explicitly recognized DPI as a development accelerator.
The Global Digital Public Infrastructure Repository was launched under the Indian Presidency as a knowledge platform to share lessons and practices, with India contributing the highest number of DPI solutions.
The Modular Open-Source Identity Platform (MOSIP), developed in India, represents another important example of India's DPI contribution. MOSIP provides a configurable and open-source framework for countries seeking to build sovereign digital identity systems. More than 25 nations are adopting or exploring the platform for their national identity programs.
India's journey with Digital Public Infrastructure reflects a broader shift in how development and governance are conceived in the digital age. What began as an effort to expand financial inclusion and identity access has matured into a comprehensive, interoperable architecture that underpins economic activity, public service delivery, and institutional capacity.
The model demonstrates that scale need not compromise trust, and that openness can coexist with security and regulation.
The "State of Digital Public Infrastructure in India 2025" report, prepared by IIM Bangalore's Center for Digital Public Goods, argues that India has built a "middle-path" digital model balancing public and private sector efforts, serving as a template for the Global South.
By linking technology with public purpose, India has shown that digital systems can strengthen democracy while accelerating growth.
As more nations look to build resilient and inclusive digital foundations, India's experience stands not merely as a case study but as a reference point for the future of public digital infrastructure.
The IMF has cited India as a leading example of digital infrastructure, noting that systems like digital IDs, payments rails, and data exchange layers should be treated like traditional infrastructure. India's DPI ecosystem proves that population-scale digital transformation is not only possible but can be achieved with remarkable efficiency, inclusivity, and innovation, setting a global benchmark for the twenty-first century.