India shows tech can bridge haves & have-nots divide: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

India is demonstrating that technology can be used to break down barriers between the haves and have-nots through its digital inclusion programmes, said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union minister of state for electronics and information technology, at the Business Standard TechTalk on Friday in Bengaluru.

An area in which technology has succeeded is reducing fake accounts for taking subsidies.

“This narrative of technology exclusion and therefore digital inclusion versus digital divide … if there is a country in the world that is demonstrating that tech can be used to demolish that barrier that exists between the haves and the have-nots that is India,” he added.

According to media reports, the government cancelled 42.8 million bogus ration cards during the period 2014-21. The minister said the government was determined to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-powered solutions.

“AI will be a kinetic-enabler of India’s digital economy and also make governance smarter and more data-led.”

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi endeavoured to make AI work for India.

“Our government’s perspective on AI is a quote from our Prime Minister way back in 2017-18. He had said ‘we have to make AI in India and make AI work for India’. Our government from 2015 has always looked at technology as an enabler for transformation and empowerment.”

The government will spend some $200 million (around Rs 1,635 crore) to develop an AI ecosystem and make e-governance platforms more intelligent, said Chandrasekhar.

“We have almost $200 million to spend on AI. I am confident that if there is more funding required to build this world-class ecosystem for AI, which I don’t think is required as it is more about innovation and not infrastructure, the government will fully support,” Chandrasekhar said. 

The Centre will prioritise using AI for governance applications of India Stack, language model Digital India Bhashini, and health care and building smarter applications. It will encourage the private sector and start-ups to develop use cases in other sectors, the minister said on Friday.

“Just as UPI (United Payments Interface) was built to solve a government problem and has created one of the most vibrant fintech ecosystems in the world, we believe AI can make governance smarter, the process of scheme planning more intelligent, data-led with build-on models. At the same time it will create an adjacent ecosystem of innovation around AI, for which we are building a framework,” Chandrasekhar said.

India Stack comprises a host of open source software application programming interfaces (APIs) of government-backed services such as Aadhaar, UPI, eSign, and DigiLocker. The open-source model has created a plethora of computer languages, architecture, APIs, libraries or lexicons, user interfaces, and the apps themselves.

“We will bring in learning and intelligence into that Stack, which will sit on all these huge amounts of data we have about consumer behaviour and what citizens are consuming,” Chandrasekhar said. He said AI would take down the duplication and fraudulent use of subsidies to almost zero.

Recalling the government’s initiatives a few weeks ago on the launch of the new version of Skill India, Chandrasekhar, who also holds the portfolio of Union minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship, said the edition of the programme was focused on being both industry and future-ready.

Elaborating on the programme, Chandrasekhar said it was clear from the industry that AI skills and adjacent skills will be in great demand in the years to come.

“Tomorrow’s world is not going to be today’s world and the assumptions we use today will not be used tomorrow. This (job-related) disruption is what we should be prepared for. We should not be scared of it, we should also think of it as an opportunity. This is the disruption that the entire world is facing. But we have the ability to be the talent pool for all these new future-ready job role requirements. We have young Indians today who are prepared to get skilled, upskilled or re-skilled.”

Only Indian start-ups and researchers to have direct access to Indian datasets

Under its India AI programme, the Centre has conducted consultations with industry stakeholders for launching the India datasets programme. Four working groups of representatives from the government, academic institutions, and start-ups have been set up for designing India dataset platforms and centres of excellence on AI.

“One of the big concerns about AI is the fear of bias and the lack of diversity in the underlying datasets that are fuelling these (AI language) models. One of the big reasons that the India datasets programme is so powerful is that we represent one of the most diverse collections of datasets of citizens from all parts of the country,” Chandrasekhar said.

He added “currently our thinking is that the access to India datasets programmes will be offered to essentially either Indian researchers or start-ups. Nothing precludes the Indian start-ups from collaborating with big global companies, but certainly, we will allow direct access only to the Indian start-ups”.

In the Union Budget for 2023-24, the government announced the establishment of three centres of excellence for AI. These centres will be connected with academic researchers, the industry and start-ups. The minister said there would be a networked model for AI, similar to a hub-and-spoke model.

The government is equally focused on creating guardrails for emerging technologies like AI, he added. “One of the big areas of the Digital India Act, which will be replacing the IT Act, 2000, will be the framework of guardrails for ethical use without disrupting innovation.”

He said the next round of discussions would begin by the end of April.