Aadhar helped the nation massively during the pandemic: Nandan Nilekani

Hyderabad: Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) announced on Friday that it has conducted its 185th Annual General Meeting (AGM) virtually.

In his keynote 'Transforming India through Public Digital Infrastructure.' Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder and Chairman of Infosys spoke about how India's digital infrastructure has been essential to the nation in recent years and is continuously growing from strength to strength.

"For example, Aadhar helped the nation massively during the pandemic. Another wonderful accomplishment was UPI which started in 2016 and has grown to 3 billion transactions per month - within just 5 years. One can't survive without a digital strategy", Nilekani said.

He also offered some insight into the next big thing: Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA).

"This Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry account aggregator model will enable SMEs to get loans by offering their data as collateral for financial assistance," he added.

He believes this model will help the economy recover from economic pandemics using the information as collateral.

Nilekani also spoke on the importance of interoperability in digital infrastructure. "Interoperability is critical for governments to provide a foundation that allows private innovations to flourish. This will help accelerate growth into India's digitally connected future," Nilekani said.

The meeting was led by Sudhir Kapadia, president, Bombay Chamber. Anjali Bansal, new president, Bombay Chamber, Nilesh Shah, Vice president, Bombay Chamber and guest speaker, Nandan Nilekani, Co-founder and Chairman of Infosys. The topic in focus during the entire meet was 'Transforming India through public digital infrastructure.'

In his presidential address, Sudhir Kapadia spoke on the Chamber's achievements in the previous year. The achievements included dealing with Covid control measures with a particular emphasis on immunizing large parts of the Indian population.

"Some of the Chamber's suggestions for communication strategy and increasing coverage have been accepted by the Indian government. The Chamber also submitted its recommendations to the Finance Minister under Chamber's pre-budget memorandum for FY-22. Bombay Chamber also conducted a third round of economic outlook survey amongst its members in July 2020 for 2020-21," Kapadia said. He also touched upon the various events and sessions held by Bombay Chambers.

In her mission statement, Anjali Bansal spoke on how Covid-19 accelerated the adoption of digital strategies across the nation. Her mission statement focused on four key elements: Sustainable economic growth while balancing it with climate change, ease of doing business, unlocking the potential powerhouse of women and integrating into economy building initiatives and Mumbai 4.0 – where digital strategies fill gaps in the economy. The event ended with Nilesh Shah offering a vote of thanks.