Nandan Nilekani 15 Min Compact Talk on India Growth

Event Date: 21-Mar-2025

📅 Key Events in 2016 (“The Year That Changed Everything”)

1. April 4, 2016 – India issued its 1 billionth Aadhaar ID (now over 1.3 billion IDs).
2. April 11, 2016 – Launch of UPI (Unified Payments Interface).
3. September 2, 2016 – RBI issued guidelines enabling democratized credit access.
4. September 5, 2016 – Jio launched with free voice and data for 6 months.
5. November 8, 2016 – Demonetization: Withdrawal of high-denomination currency notes.
6. December 30, 2016 – BHIM app launched by the Prime Minister.

📊 Digital Infrastructure & Adoption Stats

• 1.4 billion people now have a digital ID (Aadhaar).
• 2.25 billion Aadhaar authentications per month.
• UPI payments: 16 to 17 billion transactions per month.
• FASTag (unified toll system): 384 million transactions per month.
• GST Impact: Formal companies increased from 4 million to 14 million.
• DigiLocker: Indians store Aadhaar, driving licenses, and vehicle documents on their phones.

📱 Smartphone & App Usage

• Smartphone users to increase from 600 million to 900 million by 2035.
• People now show IDs, make payments, and open bank accounts using their phones.

🚀 Startup Ecosystem Growth

• 2015–16: ~1,000 startups.
• 2025: ~150,000 startups.
• 2035 Projection: 1 million startups.
• Example startups:
  • PhonePe (Walmart-owned): 350 million active users.
  • Meesho: 150 million consumers.
  • Physics Wallah: Edtech unicorn.
  • Zeppto: Built by two 22-year-old Stanford dropouts.
  • Rapido: 3.5 million rides per day (bike taxis).
  • Urban Company: 50,000+ service providers.

🧒 Demographics

• India will have 380 million Gen Z citizens by 2035.
• Most will have grown up in the digital and mobile-first era.

💰 Capital Markets & Financial Access

• India had 327 IPOs in the last year, raising $20 billion.
  • Highest in the world in terms of number of IPOs.
• Account Aggregator system:
  • Covers 10% of personal loans today.
  • Facilitates ~₹10,000 crore ($1+ billion) credit per month.
• 50% of Indian wealth is in land, which is not fungible yet.
• Push for land tokenization using public blockchains to make land tradable/collateralized.
• Companies like Razorpay, PhonePe, Pine Labs are shifting registration back to India and paying taxes.

🌆 Urbanization & Formalization

• Only 15% of Indian economy is formalized (compared to Brazil’s 60%).
• 63 million small businesses exist, but few are formalized.
• Goal: Increase to 10 million formalized businesses.
• Push to expand innovation beyond top 50 cities into smaller towns and rural areas.

🔍 Reforms Needed for 8% Growth

• Use AI at population scale for education, language translation, and health.
• Expand account aggregator usage to boost credit access.
• Tokenize land assets to unlock trapped capital.
• Promote entrepreneurship across India, not just metros.
• Turbocharge formalization:
  • Enable portability of benefits and credentials.
  • Push for deregulation and simplification of compliance laws.

🧭 Future Vision

• India is expected to grow at 6% steadily.
• With a few reforms (AI, capital access, formalization), can grow at 8%.
• Combination of digital and physical infrastructure will fuel this.
• Goal: Make India a digitally-empowered entrepreneurial economy.

Source Youtube Video