In budget 2023, the government has proposed major expansion for DigiLocker and announced a new digital public infrastructure (DPI) for agriculture.

Launched in 2015, DigiLocker is a secure cloud based platform for storage, sharing and verification of documents and certificates. So far, 145.95 million users have used DigiLocker and 5.62 billion documents have been stored and issued.

Union minister for electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “DigiLocker is a very effective tool. At least three countries are on the verge of starting implementation of DigiLocker in their countries. It is such an effective system as a part of the Digital India vision.”

Aimed at the concept of paperless governance, it reduces the administrative overhead by minimizing the use of paper and curtailing the verification process. Issued documents available via DigiLocker are fetched in real-time directly from the issuing agency.

It acts as a secure document exchange platform like payment gateway between trusted issuer and trusted requester/verifier with the consent of the citizen. It also provides a verification module enabling government agencies to verify data directly from issuers after obtaining user consent.

To enable more fintech innovative services, the scope of documents available in DigiLocker for individuals will be expanded and a new Entity DigiLocker will be set up for use by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), large business and charitable trusts.

This will be towards storing and sharing documents online securely, whenever needed, with various authorities, regulators, banks and other business entities.

RS Sharma, former IT Secretary who launched DigiLocker describing it as a ‘private space on a public cloud’ said digitally signed electronic KYC and business documents holds a huge economic value.

“Any hassle-free digital invention that makes life easy for everybody saves cost. For example, electronic KYC for getting mobile connections has reduced the cost of getting SIMS. Similarly, it has reduced the cost of opening bank accounts and that is why in the JAM (Government e Marketplace) we opened millions of accounts,” adds Sharma.