Sir,
Overwhelming majority of people in our country are very poor. I have a plan to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in couple of decades. I read in a newspaper that a mckinsey report states that if all of India's land records were to be computerized, India's GDP growth rate will be augmented by 2 percent. Bank of England simulated an experiment in which it found that british economy grew 3% faster when digitized at 30% than without any digitization .We all know how information and communication technologies are increasing efficiencies and saving costs for organizations and even governments around the world. In many Scandinavian countries and Japan many retail transactions happen with the help of nfc enabled smartphones . If every individual were to be provided with nfc enabled smartphones in India and entire country covered under 4g signals , work on latter is nearing completion by many companies. Foundation for a revolution could be laid. Government need not even finance the purchase of standard features enabled nfc smartphones . Retailers in understanding with smartphone manufacturers and commercial lenders can finance all purchases by even the poorest as once economy is completely digitized retailers, smartphone manufacturers , service providers and commercial lenders can recuperate their investments with interests and profits in a reasonable time frame. Government has just to facilitate all this. All retail transactions will be with nfc enabled smartphones. The monetary transactions that are not retail will have to be digitized as well. It will then be possible to monitor and record all transactions and suitable software can be designed to monitor all transactions in many ways. All this data could be made available to general public except those that compromise security or privacy laws. A suitable software can be developed that subjects every transactions and or income to taxes if those transactions or incomes fall under tax bracket . Thus making filing of tax returns obsolete, saving millions of man hours. In a completely digitized economy, laffer's curve would not be applicable as voluntary filing of tax returns would not be required. Tax GDP ratio could be as high as desired by the government . As every fund and transaction would be visible, black economy will face extinction. I heard in a news channel few days back that black economy is of the order of magnitude several times the official economy. In an electronic economy, every transaction fund or income i.e. money in any form will be visible to the public so even if politicians and bureaucrats want to hide anything. It will not be possible. Software can be developed that puts illegal money into public accounts, does not allow public officials to accept funds over and above official compensation. When bribes /When howsoever illegal funds do come, software can easily notify the general public of this and transfer those to intended beneficiaries.When it would come to expenditure of public funds. Suitable software can ensure that these funds are not directed for purposes other they are intended for. Even if somehow it is siphoned off , putting it back into public funds would simply require pressing some buttons. Even in an completely digitized economy local bodies like panchayats and municipalities can make plans and budgets for development of their local areas , these would be submitted to the central team of programmers or computer itself which will ensure that work being done meets highest standards of quality and none of the suppliers , contractors and public officials allocate funds to themselves or their relatives violating the best practices. I am sure suitable software can ensure this. At every moment all financial operations of all levels of government will be visible to general public in real time greatly increasing transparency and accountability amongst public officials. High investment into infrastructure health , education building liveable houses roads , rails will cause economic growth .New forms of decentralized electricity production like solar panels over rooftops connected to grids with excess electricity storage in molten salt vats that provides electricity when sun is out at costs comparable to thermal power generation can be taken up by enterprising entrepreneurs . Even in thermal power plants CO2 emitted can used as a chemical feedstock . Covestro has developed a technology to convert CO2 into plastic that again can be used as a fuel. In a completely digitized economy it can be programmed that compensation of public officials grows proportionately to the growth in income of poorest segment of the society. This will motivate officials to work sincerely to grow the incomes of most downtrodden . Digital economy can always be calculating the average income of the poorest segment of the society. We have a public education system which is not envy of the world. If entire education from pre nursery to post graduation is available in form of self learning multimedia modules in all disciplines that exist in India or the world relevant to India , free of cost to entire population with expert system and human tutor help online. At a fraction of cost of building brick and mortar universities and colleges , we will be able to provide high quality standardized education to everyone. If a course requires practical sessions or lab research, it should be possible to schedule that online. This way there will be maximum utilization of our expensive research facilities.All companies and businesses that provide any kind of training too could provide training modules online as long as it doesn't compromise their trade secrets and competitiveness. Smart software can always link job requirements to suitable job seekers based on the matching of skills required to skills acquired by candidates. These measures will spur innovation and creation of start-ups at an expedited rate . Unemployment benefits should be tied to completion of minimum number of modules in training or education , that way voluntary unemployment will be discouraged and productivity encouraged. Central Bank will have accounts and hold funds of those who don't have bank accounts in addition to accounts of those with regular banks. For reserve bank of India, it will be possible to conduct controlled experiments at macroeconomic level and arrive at set of policies that best grow the economy while creating maximum number of jobs. All job requirements will have to be integrated into a single national database to study the effect of policies on jobs.
Small businesses too can attract capital from the general public in an electronic economy as economy will be completely digitized, small businesses or startups can list their business operations and plans in detail on online platform offered free of cost to everyone as an infrastructure and specify capital requirements as well and any investment however small can be tracked by the investor with the help of a certified software that assures absence of malpractices , at any and every moment . There are many businesses that do not get off planning stage for want of capital and many small investors don't invest in neighbourhood businesses due to ignorance or perception of risk . If online platform for investment and operations of businesses is the only way for any business to operate big or small investors at all times will be assured that their investment will always be in an organization in which all funds that is available with the business they have invested in will comply with all local, federal and international fiscal and regulatory laws and practices . A software can be designed that does just that with completely digitized money ensuring safety of investors in very small businesses that isn't there even in their neighbourhood .Tracking movement of money even within an organization is not possible if there are transactions involving paper currency and these are not recorded . Even if paper currency transactions are recorded , errors inadvertent or deliberate can always be made with ulterior motives. In a digitized economy every transaction will be under scrutiny as they are happening and after they have happened by men and machines . A lot of software will have to be developed for the above and many more applications . The development organizations and personnel can easily recover the cost of development and operations from the users by negotiating with regulatory bodies which could be set up for the purpose of protecting ordinary investors ,consumers and small businesses while at the same time ensuring healthy rate of return for development organizations. These measures will could grow any economy at a rate faster than they would grow without economy being completely digitized , greatly increasing prosperity of people in a relatively short span of time. Entire project can be financed by a consortium of commercial lenders as investment involved can totally be recuperated along with interests and profits in a reasonable time frame.
the cost of creating this infrastructure to would not be very expensive .
India created a database of more than a billion people with the cost of slightly over a billion dollars. Most powerful supercomputer in the world use a fraction of their computing power for most complex problems.
Hence to say that above mentioned setup would not be very expensive would not be wrong.
I hope my ideas are publicized and implemented as soon as possible, As we all know there is an urgency.
Thank you
Rahul Singh
