Kathmandu, Dec. 13: Indian Embassy in Kathmandu organised a seminar on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) on Tuesday evening with the aim of driving innovation in the digital economy, with a special emphasis on India-Nepal digital connectivity.
The seminar explored the transformative potential of DPI and was organised in association with UNDP Nepal and Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) with the support of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB).
Rekha Sharma, Nepal’s Minister for Communication and Information Technology was the chief guest at the event.
The Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) partnered with the Embassy and represented industry at the event.
The communication minister underscored Nepal’s commitment to adopting digital technologies and advised officials of India and Nepal to cooperate in the field of technology.
“The government has been working to introduce digitization in all sectors of government. In regards to it, we have been able to collect data from more than one crore and 31 lakh citizens, which has already been digitized and we have distributed 9600 digital signatures. We have also started an integrated management system to reduce the use of paper documents to promote digitization for which we want to learn from the doings of the Government of India,” said Sharma.
India’s DPI journey has made significant strides in bridging the digital divide by prioritising inclusivity and ensuring that digital infrastructure is accessible to all.
“With the progress India has made in its digital infrastructure, Nepal also wants to benefit from it. Along with utilising the ICT and digital infrastructure, we strongly feel that cooperation with India is a must; the Internet bandwidth vastly depends on India,” she added while addressing the programme.
Addressing the opening plenary, Naveen Srivastava, Ambassador of India to Nepal, highlighted the emphasis on DPI under India’s G20 Presidency and the G20 Framework for Systems of Digital Public Infrastructure, a voluntary and suggested framework for DPI. He explained how digital technology can help countries leapfrog development milestones.
“G20, therefore, it was logical that India would champion the DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) in the G20 when we chaired last year. As pointed out, the G20 in September became the first group of countries to come out with a definition of DPI so that while everybody is doing or different countries are doing part of DPI, there is no unified common understanding, and that helps to end it. Not just championing DPI in the world but also creating an interoperable system,” Ambassador Srivastava said.
Drawing from India’s best practises and other global and regional experience with DPI, this seminar provided a detailed overview of the use cases of DPI to more than 200 government officials, industry, startups, academia and other stakeholders from Nepal.
The keynote address by Dr. Pramod Varma, Co-chair, Center for Digital Public Infrastructure and ex-Chief Architect, UIDAI, outlined the DPI approach to creating inclusive and sustainable economic development with examples from India such as the Unified Payments Interface, Digi Yatra, DPIs for tax, Account Aggregators and Open Network for Digital Commerce. Benjamin Bertelsen, DPI Manager (acting), UNDP, Chief Digital Office, explained the concept of DPI through a presentation.
The first panel discussion was a confluence of ideas on the use cases of digital credentials and data storage, with Dipesh Bista, CEO, e-Governance Commission; Debabrata Nayak, CTO, Digital India Corporation and Dr Pramod Varma, Co-chair, Center for Digital Public Infrastructure and ex-Chief architect, UIDAI offering their perspectives.
With a focus on concrete use cases, the discussion underscored the potential for robust, secure, and interoperable data sharing systems to interface between public and government bodies. A special address by Shanker Das Bairagi, National Security Advisor, Government of Nepal, highlighted the importance of digital connectivity between our two countries.
A subsequent panel moderated by Dr. Biswash Gauchan, Executive Director, IIDS explored the current state and future of digital payment systems, emphasising advancing digital connectivity. Neelesh Man Pradhan, CEO, Nepal Clearing House Ltd (NCHL) and Anubhav Sharma, Head of International Business – Partnership, Business Development & Marketing at NPCI International Pvt Ltd (NPIL) highlighted the MOU between NPIL India and NCHL for facilitating cross-border digital payments.
Saroj Nepal, National Programme Coordinator, UNCDF, Nepal, emphasised the potential of digital payments to catalyse economic growth. Sixit Bhatta, founder of Tootle, shared how DPI can accelerate and support startups.
The event concluded with a valedictory address by Bam Bahadur Mishra, Deputy Governor, Nepal Rastra Bank, who outlined NRB’s initiatives to promote digitalization and reaffirmed NRB’s support in taking forward digital payment infrastructure, including cross-border connectivity.
“The Embassy will continue to cooperate with various stakeholders in Nepal to explore synergy and convergences to leverage DPI for the mutual benefit of the people of our two countries,” the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu said in a release.