Digital Economy To Contribute Over 20% To India’s GDP By 2026: MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar

SUMMARY

The share of the digital economy in India’s GDP has increased from 4-4.5% in 2014 to 11% today and will cross the 20% mark by 2026: Chandrasekhar

Chandrasekhar also emphasised how India’s digital innovations over the past few years have transformed people's lives, governance, and democracy altogether

The minister’s comment come a day after the Union Cabinet approved the extension of the Digital India initiative with an additional outlay of INR 14,903 Cr

The digital economy is set to contribute over 20% to India’s total gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said while addressing the G20 Digital Innovation Alliance Summit in Bengaluru on Thursday (August 17).

“The digital economy has gone from 4-4.5% in 2014 of the total GDP to 11% of the total GDP today. And we expect the digital economy piece to be over 20% of our GDP by 2026,” Chandrasekhar said.

As per the MoS, digital economy and innovations will be at the core of Indian and other economies in the future.

“This is just not an abstract conversation about innovation or technology. It is becoming a centrepiece to how the global economies of India and other countries are being reshaped and redrawn,” said Chandrasekhar.

The G20 Digital Innovation Alliance initiative was launched under the MeitY Startup Hub as part of India’s G20 Presidency. It aims to accelerate the growth of startups from all G20 countries and nine invited guest countries in six sectors – edtech, healthtech, agritech, fintech, secured digital infrastructure, and circular economy.

Today, Chandrasekhar inaugurated the G20-Digital Innovation Alliance Summit, a two-day summit, which will be attended by global experts and digital leaders including representatives from other G20 countries.

Addressing the attendees, Chandrasekhar emphasised how India’s digital innovations over the past few years have transformed people’s lives, governance, and democracy altogether.

“This pace of digitalisation means we are now looking at every citizen, every consumer consuming digital products or services, whether it is Instagram reels or DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) that connect them to the government and governance, or using the cloud and all of the upstream and downstream impacts that are created by this pace and trend of digitalisation,” Chandrasekhar added.

It is pertinent to note that India has taken significant strides towards bringing digitalisation across sectors. Be it the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) that transformed the fintech ecosystem or the launch of several AI-backed initiatives, the steps taken by the government have helped the country’s tech ecosystem leapfrog.

The country has also opened India Stack, a set of digital public goods, to other countries, enabling cross-border payments and more.

On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet also approved the expansion of the Digital India initiative and earmarked a total outlay of INR 14,903 Cr. A part of this will also be used to back 1,200 startups in the Tier-II and Tier-III cities.