This edition of the State of Finance in India report has India’s digital economy and its impact as its special theme. The term ‘infrastructure’ conjures up images of large projects made of steel and concrete, to provide services varying from those offered by dams and power plants to those offered by roads, highways, ports and airports. But in recent years, the term ‘digital infrastructure’, has attracted much attention. While leveraging the hardware residing in traditional infrastructure, especially telecommunications facilities, the digital infrastructure frame is built largely with ‘lighter’ hardware and mainly with software that digitizes information and manipulates it to realise desired ends.
The technological components that fall within the ambit of digital infrastructure are in the nature of digital technologies, which have the ability to transform operations in preexisting sectors and industries as well as provide opportunities for the emergence of new sectors and industries. Their deployment therefore alters the way in which production, work, distribution and marketing are organized in a range of areas. In the process, they restructure economic activity in ways that raise productivity and facilitate investment and growth. This also has consequences that can intensify existing sectoral, class and gender inequalities. In some areas, that transformation can be positive. But the case that digitization is only positive and delivers increases in productivity and output through means that are clean and environmentally friendly leaves much that is unsaid. These are some of the issues examined in the report.
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