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India is a nation of queues – long patient queues pervading all spheres of public life from banks to public distribution systems, educational institutions to hospitals. It can even be a fascinating project to calculate the time an average Indian spends waiting in queues in a lifetime. But all that happened a few years ago.

Over the past few years, queues started becoming smaller and smaller as more and more service providers began offering online services. In 2015 the Union government launched Digital India, a historic push to bring online services to the fingertips of anyone armed with a smartphone or a computer and an Internet connection that were available at some of the cheapest rates in the world and continue to be offered at those price levels. The smartphone penetration in the country is also growing fast enough to bring online service to an overwhelming share of Indian families.

But perhaps we were overenthusiastic in hoping for a world of online services if we could just put the basic infrastructure in place. Six years after Digital India was launched, the online experience often turns frustrating to millions of citizens, thanks to technical glitches. And experience has shown that technical snags are democratic, affecting both private and public sector organisations.

While different governments are struggling to tame the COVID-19 surge, it is indeed unfortunate that online services continue to suffer. Often these snags compel citizens to step out of their homes and visit offices to physically complete tasks, especially those which are time-barred.

To put it bluntly, the non-availability of online services can even push a person towards death. If India ever needed flawless online services the most, it is now, since isolation has become crucial to existence. Moreover, a smooth experience with online transactions in these times would have also convinced many ‘brick-and-mortar’ worshippers in this country of the need for digital inclusion.