How big data is helping in implementation of demonetisation

As people queue up at banks to lay their hands on the new and legitimate currency notes, few would realise that the implementation of such gargantuan scheme could not have been possible without the use of new age tech like big data, Internet of Things (IOT), e-wallets, Robotics and all that algorithm build-up and writing.

A couple of years back one could only see countries like USA, UK, Germany and China making advances in the new age tech like Robotics, Unmanned vehicles etc. Advances, if any made by India were very low key. Of course, for a country grappling with the basics, such new age technologies and innovative applications were treated more like luxury for rich or technologies of future.

To be able to think that a common man would use the same in their day-to-day life was a long shot. Being able to make payment through an e wallet or hailing a cab through taxi apps or ordering groceries online is still a challenge not only for lower income groups without smart phones but also for the Golden generation who have lived their life almost completely away from technology. However, the current demonetisation drive by the present government hints to the contrary.

It has shown the tech savvy side of the governance with massive use of data collected from various sources to strategize the demonetisation scheme, touted use of GPS enabled chips in the currency notes to locate large piles of unaccounted money hoarded (great idea which did not get implemented). Consequently, we have seen e-commerce companies and fin-tech companies gaining from this currency crunch.

But, the major player here appears to be big data and analytics. For the uninformed, big data refers to extremely large sets of data and big data analytics is the process of examining such large data sets to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, trends, user preferences and other useful business information.