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Bertram-D-Souza1 Photograph: (Bertram-D-Souza1)
What power will India wield as we strengthen our Digital Public Goods stack and DPI game globally?
India is in a unique position globally where we have built a robust technology architecture with the National ID infrastructure like Aadhaar and MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform) which has helped set a global standard in how Identity systems can be designed and rolled out. In addition to this, India has a uniquely-evolved Tax Identity or PAN Card ecosystem enabling real-time validation as well as the ability to track all financial accounts, transactions and assets. On top of these identity enablers, India has a robust Payments layer with real-time payments systems like IMPS, UPI enabling instant money movement between individuals. India also has a unique ‘Data consent architecture’ which allows for any data principal to have full-control over their information assets and consent for data sharing. Lastly, India has seen each of these Digital Public Goods stack create impact in the BFSI sector (JanDhan-Aadhaar-Mobile), eCommerce Sector (ONDC), Health Sector (Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission, COWIN, UHI), Agriculture Sector (Agristack) and many more by leveraging new technology enablers like Open Networks powered by Beckn protocols. The unique combination of the list of DPI/DPGs above have put India in a unique leadership position globally.
Eventually AI can help every Indian to have the ability to afford a virtual CA to help them be fully tax compliant.
As the recent Nasscom-Arthur D report says - India can become a $1 trillion digital economy by 2030, thanks to DPI- what could speed up or slow down this path?
Let’s first see what could speed up this path –a higher momentum of every business and start-up to be able to unlock imaginative & innovative use-cases leveraging the new-age DPIs to the fullest extent possible will help accelerate the underlying use of DPIs and help expand the digital market as a whole. As to what could slow down this path –A wait-and-watch model similar to what was seen in the early days of UPI till de-monetisation was implemented will slow down the use of DPIs in the near-term till there is an event that triggers mass usage.
Does technology create e-bureaucracy when it wipes away traditional Red Tape? How do we bring in accountability while removing power-centres or process-delays?
The answer lies in interoperability, accountability and accessibility. If I may spell these out further – ensuring that the design of new ecosystems can communicate with each other and share data seamlessly will reduce the need for duplication of effort and enable the ecosystem to grow exponentially. Also, implementing robust mechanisms such as audit trails and public reporting can ensure that technology is used effectively and ethically. Plus, leveraging advancements in technology to enable straight-through processing and access to data near-real-time will help in creating transparency, trust and can also eliminate process delays via bringing in SLAs and enforcing strict process governance.
Has tax compliance improved with digital initiatives? How much change can AI bring in?
There is a lot more that AI can bring in to further streamline processes like tax compliance, Ex: Real-time tax advisory and filing assistance, Real-time access to Income Statement data leveraging the Account Aggregator and GST framework. And AI-based tools could in future help to completely automate the tax filing process by analysing the user’s transactions, income data and helping to ensure tax compliance as a regular practice versus an end-of-year annual process. Eventually AI can help every Indian to have the ability to afford a virtual CA to help them be fully tax compliant.
AI-based tools could in future help to completely automate the tax filing process by analysing the user’s transactions, income data and helping to ensure tax compliance as a regular practice versus an end-of-year annual process.
What have been the projects/highlights you are most proud of, so far?
The past three years of my journey at Protean have been extremely fulfilling where I have had the unique opportunity to conceptualise and build products with an incredibly-talented team and set of colleagues. What’s special is that these products have the potential to create an impact in the lives of almost every individual & business in India! Our product strategy has been diverse - spanning from building Digital Infrastructure for multiple sectors in the economy to building B2B and B2B2C products for businesses of all sizes and eventually looking at exporting some of these products into global markets.
For instance, the Open Digital Ecosystems Gateway that we launched for Open Networks like ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) & ONEST (Open Network for Education & Skill Transformation) which have enabled the entire ecosystem of hundreds of Demand & Supply side Network Participants to discover each other via millions of interactions every month. Also, with eSignPRO, Protean has been a leader in providing Aadhaar Authentication, Aadhaar eKYC and Aadhaar eSign services to the entire BFSI sector and has now ventured into building a full-stack Digital Documentation Suite including eSigning, eStamping and a flexible Document Management System as a logical extension to the eSign infrastructure business.
The answer for e-bureaucracy lies in interoperability, accountability and accessibility.
What is difference between deploying technology for private enterprises and for e-gov initiatives?
Protean has the diverse experience of deploying population-scale products for both private enterprises and e-gov Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), leveraging modern technology stacks and architecture. When it comes to e-gov initiatives, we refer to it as the ‘digital infra layer’ which is where we play the role of conceptualising, architecting and building new digital ecosystems for new sectors – much like building roads which are made available to the entire ecosystem and built on the first-principles of public infrastructure. When it comes to private enterprises, we refer to it as the ‘innovation & app layer’ where we have decades of experience of delivering enterprise-grade products to complex, regulated ecosystems like the BFSI sector where security, availability and scalability are of paramount importance.
How do you ensure speed and smooth rollouts in digital green-field projects when there is some legacy environment challenge everywhere?
The key is Good architecture – Which is to explore unbundling various legacy assets by enabling them with an API or micro-service architecture. This allows for certain parts of the legacy environment to remain unchanged while enabling certain other parts to be completely re-imagined independently. Also we focus on Scalable Infrastructure – Which is to explore a cloud infrastructure which is far more scalable, available on-demand and provides higher resiliency than dedicated legacy infrastructure. We also believe in controlled rollouts - Protean has run multiple closed-loop proof-of-concepts for multiple new DPI initiatives before initiating some of the large-scale commercial rollouts which has helped get early feedback from a controlled set of users.
What have been the key inflection points for ONDC- what did you learn here- specially in terms of challenges?
On the Gateway Infrastructure, there has been constant improvement built over a long period of time to cater to the large number of concurrent search requests from multiple network participants for a diverse set of categories/use-cases on the network. As one of the leading technology service providers designing and building a ‘Recon & Settlement Framework’ to enable payment settlements across the entire ONDC network, there have been multiple challenges to get the protocol specifications finalised and then implemented by all network participants.
How do you tackle the trade-off between privacy and data adequacy in projects like PAN, Aadhaar storage?
Protean has been an organization which has always maintained the highest standards for data security and data privacy of Customer Personal Information. All such critical datasets are stored by the respective Govt. Departments to protect data at rest. Access to these databases for purposes like authentication have been enabled with strict client-specific keys and industry grade encryption standards to ensure complete protection of data during transmission for services like Online PAN Validation or Aadhaar eKYC.
What has the industry learnt from e-gov failures as seen in UK’s NHS, or Kochi e-gov with TCS?
I would not want to comment on the failures of other organizations as it may be incorrect to stereotype all such cases to a common set of root causes.
Is it tough to balance inclusivity, cybersecurity and high citizen experiences- especially when you strive for population-scale work?
It is definitely important for Protean to ensure that all of our products and services which deliver population-scale citizen impact are accessible to all, are always regulatorily compliant and are industrial-grade secure requiring us to constantly be evolving with the demanding needs of the customer and the market and pre-empting what we will need to do next.
Bertram D’Souza
Chief Product & Innovation Officer, Protean eGov Technologies Ltd
By Pratima H
pratimah@cybermedia.co.in