Going digital can boost our labour productivity

India is faring rather well on its adoption of digital technology in global comparison. This could spell productivity gains and also better-balanced development if we fix regional skews

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One of the most famous quips about India that has long held good is British economist Joan Robinson's "Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true." A telling example is the contrast between our high position in the world's GDP league table, where we rank third in terms of purchasing power parity, and our abysmal 119th spot when it comes to per capita income. But one measure on which we have unanimity, even among argumentative Indians, relates to the rapid adoption of digital technology. From a country that had one of the world's lowest tele-densities not so long ago, we are more connected today than people in most other countries. According to the latest State of India's Digital Economy report of Delhi-based Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (Icrier), based on aggregate levels of digitalization, as measured by its new CHIPS framework, India is now the third largest digitalized economy. We trail China and the US, but are ahead of South Korea, the UK and Singapore. Unlike many countr