Jamaica and India Collaborate in Digital Technology

Jamaica and the Republic of India have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to strengthen collaboration between the nations in digital technology.

Prime Minister, Dr. the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, in providing details in the House of Representatives on Tuesday (October 8), said the agreement will see “co-operation in sharing successful digital public infrastructure aimed at promoting financial inclusion and social and economic transformation”.

He said it will also explore “the implementation of a unified payment interface (UPI) like a digital payment system in Jamaica”.

UPI is India’s popular mobile-based real-time payment system, which enables instant personal and merchant payments.

Dr. Holness said e-Gov Jamaica will now move forward with implementation, noting that the digital payments will be led by the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ).

The Prime Minister, who was reporting on his recent visit to India, said the Government remains committed to investing in public digital infrastructure projects that will improve service delivery for Jamaicans and visitors alike.

“Our cooperation with India is to catalyse it and to make it much more widely available,” he said.

Dr. Holness noted that the use of digital technology in India, such as the UPI, has facilitated the transfer of benefits and enabled the Government to reach more persons.

He said the replication of the system in Jamaica will see improved benefits for individuals who access services such as the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH), noting that persons will no longer have to stand in line to receive payments.

“India has used this unified payment interface, their digital public infrastructure and their national identification system to increase public social safety net payments,” he pointed out.

“They were explaining how they are increasing benefits to include more farmers in their social safety net, which is something that Jamaica needs to do with our PATH. One of the complaints of PATH is that it’s not reaching the persons who should be getting it, that there is a lot of leakage, double counting, but most importantly, it pains my heart when I pass the postal offices and the postal agencies and I see the long lines and people standing up to collect their PATH payments. In today’s world we can eliminate that by putting in place a well-structured unified payment interface,” Dr. Holness said.

The Prime Minister explained that India launched its biometric national ID programme, the Aadhaar, in 2009 noting that by 2023, more than 1.3 billion individuals were enrolled.
India’s population stands at 1.4 billion.