Digital Public Infrastructure is India's new federal glue.

Q. Digital Public Infrastructure is India's new federal glue. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) refers to shared, interoperable digital rails for identity, payments and data exchange. The onboarding of Rajasthan's Jan Aadhaar (Family ID) onto DigiLocker for about 7.5 crore residents [1] shows DPI binding Centre and States functionally, though it supplements rather than replaces constitutional federal machinery.

How DPI works as federal glue - Union rail, State content: DigiLocker, MeitY's document wallet launched in 2015 under Digital India [2], now carries State-issued credentials — Family IDs of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, covering over 37 crore citizens [1]. - Two-way integration: citizens can both fetch an existing Family ID and enrol for a new one with in-app consent, so States remain the issuing authority while the Centre supplies the plumbing [1]. - Welfare convergence: State schemes keyed to Jan Aadhaar — Chiranjeevi health cover, PDS, scholarships — become accessible without paper [1], reducing document-loss failure among the poor. - Scale and portability: with over 950 crore documents issued through DigiLocker [3] and app-within-app access to 1,658 central and State services via UMANG [4], credentials travel with migrants across State lines.

Limits of the claim - Capacity asymmetry: States differ sharply in digitisation, so integration deepens existing inequality rather than levelling it. - Exclusion risk: family-unit IDs can wrongly delist genuine members; connectivity and digital-literacy gaps persist. - Centralisation concern: dependence on a Union-run rail gives the Centre leverage over State data flows; consent obligations under the DPDP Act, 2023 need firm enforcement. - Not a substitute: fiscal and legislative federalism still runs through the GST Council, Finance Commission and Inter-State Council.

DPI therefore acts as operational glue — it harmonises delivery where constitutional bargaining is slow. Its promise will be realised if States retain ownership of their credentials, data-protection safeguards are enforced, and offline and assisted-access channels are strengthened, so that technology advances the cooperative federalism the Constitution envisages.

(~325 words)

Sources: 1. Jan Aadhaar (Family ID) Now on DigiLocker, PIB/MeitY, 17 June 2026 — 7.5 crore Rajasthan citizens; four-State Family ID onboarding covering 37 crore; two-way fetch-and-enrol; Chiranjeevi/PDS/scholarship linkage 2. DigiLocker, Digital India Programme, MeitY — DigiLocker as MeitY initiative launched in 2015 under Digital India 3. India's Digital Public Infrastructure, PIB (March 2026) — over 950 crore documents issued through DigiLocker 4. DigiLocker Partners with UMANG, PIB/MeitY — app-within-app access to 1,658 central and State services