India needs explosive pace of Technological Growth: Amitabh Kant

Introduction

India cannot afford to be incremental in its approach and needs explosive pace of technological growth, chief executive officer of government's policy think-tank Niti Aayog said on Sunday. Speaking at the Mint Visionaries event here, Amitabh Kant said that India is witnessing a radical transformation by sheer use of technology, which includes the use of biometrics, driven unique identification number Aadhaar as well as mobile.

“We are the only country in the world which 1,200 million biometrics, 1,200 million mobiles and 1,200 million bank accounts. Between 2014 and 2018 every second bank accounts opened across the world was opened in India," he said. Besides, mobile data consumption is more than the data consumption of USA and China put together.

India's entire public finance system, which includes subsidy payout to the poor as well as the government's mega health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat is cashless.

“India has become data rich before it became rich," Kant said, adding that data will fuel change in India and will enable startups to use them to spearhead change.

Source

LiveMint, 17 November 2019