DIGITAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AND INCLUSIVE GROWTH IN INDIA: ASSESSING ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY FOR VIKSIT BHARAT 2047

India has placed a lot of hopes in the interoperable three-pronged support of digital identity, real-time payments and consent-based data exchange-popularly known as the India Stack-which can be considered as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). This paper questions whether Indias administrative capability is sufficient to make this technological achievement good for inclusive growth as envisioned in Viksit Bharat 2047 with a USD 30 trillion economy and per capita income of USD 18,000. The paper is based on secondary data from the National Payments Corporation of India, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the DBT Mission and the recent scholarship in public administration and development economics, and proposes a four-dimensional framework of administrative capacity, which comprises infrastructural reach, bureaucratic competence, regulatory capacity and accountability embeddedness. While the analysis reveals Indias DPI has reached scale and measurable fiscal impact, inclusiveness remains limited due to a persistent rural, gender and digital-literacy divide; documented instances of exclusion in authentication at the frontline and in the state; and uneven capacity at the frontline and within States. The paper brings three priorities to the forefront: capacity building in the last mile, enforcement of data protection regimes and cooperative federalism, all of which are seen as the key constraints on the path to 2047, having been supplanted by technology.