How Digitalisation is Helping India Keep Up With Population Growth

With a population of around 1.45 billion people in 2024, even small increases create major pressure on public services, banking, healthcare, education and infrastructure. The challenge is not only serving more people, but serving them faster, more fairly and with fewer delays.

That is where digitalisation has made a real difference.

Over the past decade, India has built a digital ecosystem that reaches far beyond big cities. Internet connections grew from 251.5 million in 2014 to 969 million in 2024, while BharatNet has connected more than 218,000 rural residents with high-speed internet. This matters because population growth is not only happening in urban centres. Rural communities also need access to payments, documents, healthcare, government services and markets.

One of India’s biggest digital shifts has been identity. Aadhaar has given residents a unique digital ID, with 1.42 billion Aadhaar numbers generated as of September 2025. For a country of India’s size, this has helped simplify verification for banking, welfare, telecom services and public schemes. Instead of relying only on paperwork, people can prove their identity more quickly and access services with less friction.

Digital payments have also changed everyday life. UPI has made instant payments normal for millions of people, from small shops to large businesses. In FY 2024–25, UPI accounted for 81% of India’s retail digital payment transactions, showing how quickly digital finance has become part of daily activity.

Healthcare is another important example. Through eSanjeevani, India’s national telemedicine platform, more than 163 million consultations were delivered across all states and union territories. In a fast-growing country, this kind of digital access helps reduce pressure on physical hospitals and gives people in remote areas a better chance of reaching medical support.

India’s story shows that digitalisation is not just about technology. It is about building systems that can handle scale.

As populations grow, manual processes become harder to manage. Queues get longer, records become harder to track and services become slower. Digital tools do not solve every problem, but they help countries move faster, reduce duplication and reach more people without increasing complexity at the same pace.

For other fast-developing regions, including Central Asia, India offers a useful lesson: digitalisation works best when it is practical, inclusive and built around real everyday needs.