Onlykashmir.in News Desk
Srinagar’s Darakshan Hassan Bhat, President of the Kashmir Women’s Organisation, carried India’s digital transformation story to the global stage at the 63rd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, placing the impact of technology on women, rural communities and vulnerable groups before an international audience.
Speaking on “Billions Connected, Millions Empowered: India’s Digital Transformation,” Bhat laid out the scale of the country’s digital public infrastructure and its expanding footprint in financial inclusion, welfare delivery and economic empowerment. She noted that internet users in India have climbed from roughly 25.15 crore in 2014 to over 109 crore today, a leap that reflects how deeply connectivity has spread across even remote regions.
Financial inclusion featured prominently in her remarks. Bhat pointed to more than 55 crore Jan Dhan accounts opened nationwide, with women holding 55.7 percent of them, and said Direct Benefit Transfer has moved over ₹53 lakh crore straight to beneficiaries, tightening transparency in welfare disbursal. She also cited India’s position as a global leader in digital payments, with more than 20 billion UPI transactions processed every month, and highlighted the role of over 5.6 lakh Common Service Centres in extending public services into rural and underserved pockets of the country.
On women’s empowerment specifically, Bhat said more than 10 crore rural women are now linked through Self-Help Groups, forming a grassroots network that supports livelihoods and financial participation. She further pointed to India’s identity infrastructure, noting Aadhaar enrolments have crossed 1.44 billion while DigiLocker has surpassed 724.3 million users, underscoring how digital identity has become foundational to service delivery.
Even while showcasing this progress, Bhat cautioned that expansion at this scale must be matched with strong safeguards on privacy, consent, cybersecurity and data protection. She said digital progress carries real meaning only when it reaches those historically left furthest from opportunity, and called for deeper cooperation between governments, international institutions, civil society and technology partners to keep the transformation inclusive and people-centred.
She closed by stressing that the true measure of India’s digital journey lies not in user counts or transaction volumes, but in whether ordinary people, particularly women, rural communities and vulnerable populations, are gaining real access, opportunity and dignity at the last mile.
