Partial digitisation: on digital service delivery in India

📌 Summary:

• Context: India is a global leader in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) such as UPI and Aadhaar, but day-to-day digital service delivery still suffers structural problems despite the empowering promise of faceless governance
• Core argument: India's digital service delivery is held back by (a) a lack of trust in the citizen, (b) systematic underinvestment leading to availability/reliability lapses, and (c) lax cybersecurity
• Comparative anchor: Estonia digitised its last paper-based citizen service (divorce) in December 2024 — India is far behind on breadth and reliability
• Private participation (e.g., WhatsApp in Gujarat) for delivery is welcome — and increases reach
• Cybersecurity failures: vulnerabilities in public databases; CERT-In has failed to rise to the challenge; data security taken for granted
• Identity & form design failings: users forced to retype same details repeatedly despite DigiLocker existing; a single "mismatch" forces re-doing entire processes; no defect-cure mechanism; punishes minor name/spelling variations
• Accessibility gaps: poor intuitive design; persons with disabilities and large segments depend on outside help to complete "self-service" processes
• Defunct/sputtering systems: e-Sanad (launched a decade ago for Apostille legalisation of personal documents abroad) — few States onboarded; residents forced to use middlemen/touts in pre-verification
• Analogue alternatives equally cumbersome: e.g., Aadhaar updates still require physical office visits
• Responsibility split: many failures lie with States (property records, civil acts like marriage); others with Union government
• Core message: DPI (UPI/Aadhaar) is of "little use" without reciprocal trust by government and a commitment to uptime and service quality

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 — Governance (e-governance applications, models, successes, limitations); transparency & accountability; citizen-centric design; centre-state coordination; cybersecurity governance; ethics of public service delivery

📝 Prelims Facts:

• Estonia digitised its last paper service (divorce) in December 2024
• Indian DPI examples: UPI, Aadhaar, DigiLocker
• e-Sanad — launched ~10 years ago to legalise personal documents for use abroad (Apostille pre-verification)
• Indian cybersecurity nodal body: CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team)
• WhatsApp-based digital service delivery pilot: Gujarat

🔑 Key Term: Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) — interoperable, open, scalable public technology stacks (e.g., UPI, Aadhaar, DigiLocker, ONDC) that act as foundational rails for both public and private digital services; their value depends on uptime, reliability, accessibility, and reciprocal trust between state and citizen.