He’s smart. He’s savvy. And he could be PM Modi’s key to transitioning India to a cashless economy. Faced with chaos after eliminating India's highest value rupee notes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has roped in a billionaire from the ranks of his adversaries to help.
Nandan Nilekani, once a high-profile member of the Congress party and the former head of outsourcing giant and IT bellwether Infosys Ltd. whom former prime minister Manmohan Singh tapped to spearhead the country's biometrics-based Aadhaar unique identity program, has joined a committee to map a path to digital payments. India is trying to end its reliance on cash, especially in rural areas where almost every transaction is done in hard currency.
As reported in this newspaper on Thursday, Nilekani and his 13-person committee are meeting to work out how to get more Indians to adopt digital payments, via everything from their own smartphones to point-of-sale machines in local villages. While the nation has already rolled out its United Payments Interface, with hundreds of millions lacking phones or web access, a multipronged approach is needed to wean the nation of its dependence on cash.
"India has the underlying digital financial architecture in place to get this going," Nilekani said after the committee's first meeting. "How quickly the government can reach everyone is a question of execution and speed."
