Ever since the Centre announced scrapping of old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 - which took effect from November 9, 2016 - there has been a furious debate over it among the masses ranging from paan walas to lawmakers.

Those who support the move say it will flush out black money, bring transparency, improve cashless transactions and so on. Following this, the country's people encountered a new scenario. People started queuing up before ATMs and banks to draw daily quota of cash from their very own accounts to meet their daily means.

Those who oppose it say these measures are more political in nature than having real economic rationale. They argue that the demonetisation is not going to bring back black money as the most of it is held in assets in the form of land, gold or jewellery. Noted economist and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed these measures as "monumental mismanagement". Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has called demonetisation a "despotic action that has struck at the root of economy based on trust".

Every hardship comes with new opportunities. The dormant Jan Dhan accounts with "zero" balance got activated and suddenly saw a surge in deposits that gave a good signal that people got connected to banks. The accounts with "zero" balance comes down to 23 per cent of the total 25.82 crore accounts in India as on December 7, according to the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana report. A step towards greater financial inclusion is being pushed.

Rural economy runs mostly on cash-based transactions and about 85 per cent of the rural population do not use the banking system. Now, the question arises as to how to integrate the rural as well as urban populace with cashless economy and whether the present situation supports it.

Apart from conventional banking modes of cashless transactions based on cheque, drafts, debit or credit cards and so on, the faster means of transactions are through electronic mode and e-wallet. A look at the RBI's payment system indicator report suggests that out of the total 1,602 millions payment transactions in October, those through debit or credit cards form 1,121 millions, NEFT/IMPS 177 millions and mWallet 100 millions in the country. It means that significant portion of transactions to the tune of 70 per cent were made through plastic cards and about 15 per cent of total retail transactions were through electronic modes. A total of 85 per cent of transactions happening through cards, electronics means require network of POS machine, banking network and Internet service at various locations.

The flagship "Digital India" programme aims to facilitate this transition to digital economy with one of its missions - digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen. The year-on-year growth rate of the registered Internet users in India stands at an impressive 32 per cent.

Much depend on the roll out of BharatNet Project aiming to provide all gram panchayats with high-speed Internet facility by 2018. A cursory glance at the situation in Odisha depicts that as many as one third of its villages do not have mobile coverage and 40 per cent of the villages are equipped with reasonably good Internet speed - which means people in these areas can transact in electronic mode.

According to the TRAI report, the Internet users in Odisha are about 8.42 millions - about 19 per cent of the population. There are 350.46 millions Internet users in the country, out of which rural users are 113.71 millions, states the report.

The above situation depicts the quantum of work to be attempted to achieve fair level of digital inclusion of the unconnected population. Another important factor in digital economy is the digital empowerment of people to be connected to digital space. Education on information technology is a major challenge for the majority of population to be part of digital transformation. For eWallet to be a way of life, the smart phone must be available at affordable cost to the majority.

The move towards the digital economy depends on factors such as connectivity, users' digital skill, use of Internet, digitisation of business and online sale infrastructure and digitisation of public services.

In a recently published United Nations e-Government Survey, 2016, India stands at 107th position in world ranking in the e-Government Development Index, which takes into account of three components - online services, telecom infrastructure and human capital.

A closer look suggests that India is among one of the lowest in the world in terms of telecommunication infrastructure component. Technological intervention demands massive investment in digital infrastructure, more so in developing a fairly robust broadband infrastructure. Achieving the stated objective of high-speed and high-quality broadband access to all village panchayats through a combination of technologies by 2014 as envisaged in the National Telecom Policy, 2012, failed miserably. A new approach is needed by the policy makers to formulate strategy to build broadband infrastructure that will support the dream of universal digital inclusion in the quickest possible time.

Demonetisation in India opens up new adventures in small business that witnessed innovative ways of managing transactions. There is no doubt that India is moving towards a digital economy as its consequence and the pace shall be faster than before. But, the basic question remains as to what population will be part of this historic transition and by when?

(The author is an Indian Telecommunication Service officer and is special secretary, electronics and IT department, Odisha government. The views expressed here are personal)