'Digital Public Infrastructure is transforming last-mile public service delivery in India.' Evaluate this statement with reference to recent initiatives in the transport sector.

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) refers to interoperable, population-scale digital rails — identity, data-sharing and payments — on which public and private services are built. NHAI's recent tolling reforms show that DPI is genuinely reshaping last-mile delivery, though its transformative claim holds only partially.

Evidence of transformation

• Removing the counter from the citizen's path: NHAI's Digital Local Pass lets residents within a 20 km radius buy a monthly unlimited-travel pass on the RajmargYatra app, without visiting the plaza or submitting physical documents — replacing an Aadhaar/RC/residence-proof helpdesk process [1].
• Interoperability as the engine: eligibility is settled by consent-based integration with DigiLocker and VAHAN, plus GIS-based location verification — a working demonstration of India Stack applied to physical infrastructure [1].
• Scale and uptake: the FASTag Annual Pass (₹3,000; one year or 200 crossings) crossed 50 lakh users and 26.55 crore transactions in six months across about 1,150 fee plazas, accounting for roughly 28% of car transactions on the network [2].
• Grievance redress at the last mile: the MargMitra Help Centre accepts complaints in 22 scheduled languages, auto-routes them, and permits real-time tracking and appeal [1].
• Administrative gain: digitisation curbs discretion and cash handling at plazas, complementing NHAI's directive to display pass information at all fee plazas [3].

Limits to the claim

• Coverage is still thin: the Digital Local Pass began at a single plaza (Mundka–Bakkarwala, UER-II, Delhi) and has reached only about 121 plazas, against roughly 1,150 in the network [1][4].
• Access asymmetry: smartphone, connectivity and literacy prerequisites can exclude the very commuters such passes target.
• Data-record dependence: mismatched VAHAN or address records can deny an eligible user, with limited offline recourse.
• Backend persistence: barrier-based plazas remain until GNSS-based tolling matures.

On balance, DPI has decisively transformed the interface of service delivery while transformation of physical delivery systems remains incomplete. Scaling coverage, assisted-access channels and grievance-backed inclusion safeguards would let such initiatives fully advance the Digital India goal of ease of living.