Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremasinghe has said, India is at the centre of growth in the coming years and it was in the interest of Sri Lanka to copy what India has done in the field of Digital Public Infrastructure and piggyback on the success.

He was speaking at the conference on Digital Public Infrastructure organised by High Commission of India to Sri Lanka in Colombo today.

Mr. Wickremesinghe said that during his visit to India last year he discussed Sri Lanka’s challenges and opportunities with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and decided to bring in elements of Digital Public Infrastructure in the bilateral relations. He added that given the current situation of Sri Lanka, his government needed help and the best place to get the help in the field of DPI was India.

Drawing from India’s success story with DPI along with other global and regional experiences, the seminar focused on ways in which Sri Lanka can best unlock the developmental dividends from the digital transformation of governance and markets alike.

High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka Santosh Jha elaborated on the success of the Digital India that was steered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Highlighting the success of Indian digital ecosystem, he recalled the launch of UPI in Sri Lanka held last month and the upcoming unique digital identity project that India is executing in Sri Lanka.

Co-Chair of Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure Dr. Pramod Varma gave an outline on the successes of Digital India in various sectors. He described in detail India’s journey from among the least banked countries in 2008 with under 20 per cent banking penetration to over 80 per cent in under a decade.