The Prime Minister last week tweeted that digital payments have brought ease and comfort in the lives of many. "It is a common sight across India…our people have shown remarkable dexterity in adapting to tech and innovation," he added. No doubt, the pandemic has given a phenomenal fillip to our digital lives, and this push towards ‘ease of doing’ is evident in every walk of our life, including business.

While this trend is encouraging, experts point out that the progress of digitization needs to be equal. A recent report states that women constitute only one-third of internet users in the country. Similarly, 67 of the urban population uses the Internet compared to 31 percent of their rural counterparts. Also, in rural India, use of formal financial services is lowest among ST households, followed by SC households and OBC households.

No doubt, in order to address these different kinds of digital divide, the government has taken several measures over the years, but there is still a scope of doing lot more, including strengthening of indigenous ICT infrastructure, promotion of digital literacy particularly at school and college levels, web content creation in the Indian regional languages, creation of a comprehensive cyber-security framework for data security, and so on.