A connected DPI system is needed as a solution
“Digital colonisation” is no longer theoretical. A handful of large US-based technology companies have dominated, but with AI, that colonisation can be completely disastrous. India remains primarily a consumer of foreign digital products and services. The need for “Sovereign AI” recognition alone is recent and very late. AI can flip our services trade, which accounts for over 40% of India’s exports, from export surplus to import surplus.
Digital trade governance is a challenge.
No one knows today how much businesses and individual consumers use ChatGPT or Claude. We lack the systems needed even to measure, track, or govern the consumption of foreign digital products.
Reason → The system is broken – India’s trade governance architecture remains overwhelmingly goods-centric. Physical goods move through ports and customs checkpoints, but Digital products move through communication networks and “electronic transmissions” undetected.
3 Corollaries arise from here
- Intuitively, what is digital must ultimately be governed through digital means.
- India has demonstrated its capability to build sovereign-scale digital infrastructure by creating DPI like UPI and Account Aggregator-led FinTech.
- Trade governance can’t be done in regulatory silos in the data-driven AI era.
Cross-border digital trade now requires a similar strategic intervention.
We need a reimagined trade management architecture. A unified digital framework for both goods and services.
The digital silos of GST, DGFT, ICEGATE, and RBI must be connected to form a connected systems DPI. A unified DPI across these systems enhances trade governance for both goods and services. It helps manage the movement of physical goods through ports, as well as intangible assets like services and intellectual property, by positioning them as a “digital port”.
The challenge is not a lack of data, but fragmented systems that don’t share it. The power of connected systems DPI is that it can be built:
- Without centralising data, and
- Departmental boundaries remaining intact
Gains from Digital Port are multiple: some early, some advanced.
- Export Financing: GSTN has emerged as the primary source of truth for export invoices. The consequences are significant. Small exporters struggle to access export credit on time. GSTN and ICEGATE sharing invoices for verification will remove double-dipping of Invoices.
- Unified Trade filing: Export and Import filing can become seamless if GSTN reconciles export invoices online with bank remittances.
- Domestic value addition (local content) measurement can be done for every firm and product.
- Cross-border digital e-commerce: presently, B2C digital trade leaks revenue.
- Fraud detection remains inefficient because visibility is fragmented.
- Unified duty-free import schemes can be digitised and integrated. Proposed industrial parks and manufacturing corridors can offer a healthy mix of manufacturing and digitally managed export zones with integrated bond management systems.
This transformation is no longer optional.
BTN was announced in 2025. An effective way to achieve foolproof BTN is to connect DGFT, GSTN, ICEGATE, and RBI systems. This can evolve into a “Digital Port” or BTN++.
Conclusion – Overcome Slios & adopt Whole of Govt Approach
The Honourable Prime Minister has called for overcoming silos in Government and adopting a whole-of-government approach. Connected Systems DPI helps achieve this. The Concept of Digital Port is based on the same approach.
DGFT has taken up BTN development. However, a) BTN is limited to export financing for now, and b) it seems the approach is still to build BTN as another digital Silo and limit development within DGFT’s walls.
- → BTN should not become another digital silo.
- → It should become the connective tissue of India’s trade architecture.
- → Establish a ‘Trade DPI’ Institution (or SPV) Quickly
Create or designate a neutral Trade DPI body, analogous to the role played by GSTN, to steward common standards, APIs, the interoperability layer, and the ecosystem.
With the formation of a three-member Secretary Committee, the Government of India has already made data sharing one of its top priorities. Government has to rally behind the concept to build a “Digital Port”. Data Sharing by GST, Customs and RBI is a necessity; any hurdles in the way must be removed.
This connected-systems DPI in foreign trade can be built as a vertical, as most of the systems are already digital in the set of GST, ICEGATE, RBI (EPDMS and IPDMS), and DGFT.
This would position India to build one of the world’s first “Digital Ports” for the Digital economy in the AI era, while also including physical goods. Our DPI can then be used across the entire Global South. This can be another milestone in our DPI journey and global DPI positioning, while strengthening our economy internally through frictionless trade and ease of doing business.