'Technology bacha le' is not an option for everyone in India

• The use of technology has hit the roof as most people turn to digital services to meet their day-to-day requirements amid the coronavirus pandemic.
• NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh believes that the lockdown has people — consumers and business owners alike — saying, “technology bacha le (save us)”.
• However, the uptake of technology has also highlighted the digital divide that exists in our society.
• Most of the services available online can only be accessed using smartphones, and people need to speak English or be literate in order to use them effectively.

Digital technology has been a saviour for many during the coronavirus pandemic and its accompanying lockdown in India. “They’re saying technology bacha le (save us),” NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh said during the Big Reset panel with Business Insider India in collaboration with the Observer Research Foundation (ORF).

Technology may certainly have been a boon for the 4.35 million people employed in the IT industry, it’s not the same story across the board. Nearly 67.8 million migrant workers — 83.5% of whom are employed in blue-collar jobs, the informal sector — had to “be allowed to move” back home once the lockdown hit amid the coronavirus pandemic. “India needs a completely different playbook from the west when it comes to technology,” said Ghosh.

Technology adoption has become faster — but cutting costs can’t be the only priority
The coronavirus pandemic has eroded business opportunities and along the way, it’s been eating away at revenue as well. Needless to say, entrepreneurs and business owners are more cost-conscious as they focus on ensuring that their business survives to thrive in the post-COVID world.


One of the aspects of being cost-conscious is focusing on how technology can be a way for them to reduce costs. In the west, technology has, and threatens to, reduced cost by replacing workers via automation so far — in part, due to the ageing population.

But that is not something that India can afford given that the median age lies between 23 to 25 years, and around 90 million young people will be flooding in, looking for jobs in another five years. “It’s not a machine versus man story, it’s a machine and human story,” said Ghosh. Essentially, businesses have to find new revenue sources by leveraging technology to increase productivity — not just cut costs.


Other countries may need technology to replace the loss that they’re facing, but India needs a way to increase productivity and ensure that employment opportunities don’t shrink any faster than they already are. As of May, more than one-fifth of India’s demographic dividend — 23.48% — was unemployed, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

The massive young population of job seekers is not the only problem
“I have always said that Indians take to technology like fish take to water,” said Ghosh during the panel discussion. A lot of middle-class people who did not order groceries online have learnt how to. The same goes for renting houses, booking airline and railway tickets, and even acquiring liquor tokens.

But even having access to these facilities is limited to less than half of the Indian population. According to market research firm techARC, India had 502.2 million smartphone users as of December 2019 — which is less than half of the 1.3 billion population of the country.


Among them are 22% of people who are below the poverty line (BPL) grappling against the average wage of around ₹247 per day, according to the International Labour Organisation.

“This is a great time for digital thinking, this great time for pulling into digital manufacturing, work from home is a great idea. But COVID-19 also shows us that there are problems in the way our societies have been organized,” said Sunjoy Joshi, chairman of ORF.


Despite the government’s attempts to bring in digitisation measures to overcome the challenges of physical access to public goods — many were seen starving, squabbling over a packet of Parle G biscuits, the cheapest among biscuit brands, and struggling to survive as most of India was shut down.


Most of the services are in English
Even though global conglomerates like Google and Microsoft have been working on localising the web, most of these online services are available in English. It’s the first language for only 256,000 people and a second language for 83 million. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of India's 1.3 billion large demographic.

Even without the English language becoming a barrier, India’s literacy rate is 74.04% — leaving one-fourth of the population out of its fold.


For them, digital innovation is far from adequate. “This is not going to something just gonna happen in the next two, three years, four years of ideas and there are going to be conflicts — managing those conflicts is going to be key for that reset,” said Joshi, citing the example of how the Black Lives Matter movement is currently happening in the US.

“COVID has struck different sections of society differently no matter where it came from, no matter the origins,” he added. “But the fact is that the marginalized have been struck the hardest and they are the ones who are going to be most feeling the impact,” he added.

Technology may be a short-cut to cutting costs, but for the long haul — it may do more harm than good for Indian society at large without a ‘people-centric’ approach.

SEE ALSO:
BCCI wants Indian Premier League to happen — even if that means playing in empty stadiums

What is ‘Capitalism without Capital’ and why is the CEO of Bombay Stock Exchange recommending it for India

Six Indian CEOs list out the policy changes that should be prioritised