This important article in the Indian publication Medianama on the pandemic bringing to the fore the importance of the Internet, and how it should be treated on par with other infrastructure, like say electricity.
It recognises that Internet service and e-commerce have been listed as essential services for the national lockdown, and in fact uses this to argue that this should be formalised in “broader legal and institutional frameworks”
It talks about delivery of government services:
The present situation also threatens to exacerbate India’s ‘digital divide’, denying access to public goods to those without internet access. The delivery of government services, in particular, is increasingly dependent on internet connectivity at the household level. The Aadhaar project relies to a large extent on internet connectivity at the Point-of-Sale level, which routinely fails.
And the hardships faced by healthcare workers in Kashmir during the restriction of Internet access in the area.
The article also refers to e-commerce delivery workers. This is what interests me the most. Against all odds, a massive country with a messy transportation system, a severe lack of urban planning and universal addressing, and a sharp urban-rural divide has built a nation-wide delivery network via its e-commerce firms and their fulfilment partners.
If viewed and operated as infrastructure, even if owned and managed privately, this network can be used to deliver all manner of essential goods accurately, and even collect payment. It can even be used to transport personnel, say medical personnel, especially for the last mile. And not just during a pandemic or similar state of national emergency. India could rethink healthcare, education and financial inclusion with such an infrastructure. India Post Bank and Paytm Payments Bank already tech and a widespread delivery network to offer their banking and investment services across the country. But it could make entirely new things possible – such as a medical trial, which involves delivery and collection with rigorous tracking, at scale for specific categories of people, say ethnicities.
Never letting a crisis go waste is a cliche, but re-framing some assets as infrastructure could truly make this happen.