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Citizen Stack - The inaugural UN Conference on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has started today at the United Nations in New York. The two-day event is a continuum of India's G20 Presidency in 2023. Jocata (a subsidiary of BillDesk) is the only Indian startup invited to speak at the event today. Mr. Prashant Muddu, MD & CEO at Jocata, was among the panelists participating in “Building in India for the World: Innovation & Startups” and was joined by the likes of Mr. Ravi Tyagi, Chief General Manager at Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Mr. Saurabh Drolia, Director at Google Pay, and Thomas Hardjono, CTO of Connection Science and Engineering at MIT.

Despite being the growth engine of the Indian economy, there are no macro indices capturing the activity of MSMEs – on a regular basis. This has led to the development of a fact-led, high-frequency, MSME-specific index. Jocata, in association with SIDBI, is addressing this gap through ‘Jocata Sumpoorn,’ India's first and only economic activity index of credit-seeking SMEs, using consent-led, digitally accessible sales data from GST (internationally VAT). With the advent of GST in 2017, invoices are digitally uploaded, serving as an authentic, reliable, and official source of MSME sales data, enabling credit-hungry businesses to use their behavior as collateral.

Mr. Prashant Muddu, MD & CEO at Jocata, shared his views on the DPI while participating in the panel and said, “It is a proud moment for us to showcase Jocata Sumpoorn at Citizen Stack - the inaugural UN conference on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and be a part of this historic event. India’s technological landscape has changed forever, and the engine of change has been - “Digital Public Infrastructure”. It has been the backbone of progress, fundamentally changing India’s digital transformation story and the lives of 1.4 billion citizens. SMEs are crucial actors in global economies representing 90% of all businesses and contributing significantly to employment and GDP in emerging economies. However, effective policymaking and financial support for this sector requires a deeper understanding of MSME economic activity which is in part hindered by lack of a credible, sector-specific, high-frequency indicator.

Jocata Sumpoorn, built by Jocata in association with SIDBI steps in to bridge this gap. The MSME Economic Activity Index is a unique model of 'Private Infrastructure, Publicly Provisioned' that is a public good built on top of India's Digital Public Infrastructure. We are confident that this macro-level view and insights it offers - by industry, geography, gender, activity and so on will be invaluable to lenders, policy makers, economists, researchers, and other key stakeholders across the MSME sector. The Jocata Sumpoorn Index is built in India and is designed on a set of global principles that form the strong foundation of the model.  We believe that every country can identify their pillars of digital infrastructure and align its Sumpoorn journey on similar principles. Ideas may start small, but a good foundation led by technology will have a significant societal impact bridging borders and fostering inclusive growth.”

The index provides deep insights at various levels and slices – industries (how is the plastic or iron and steel industry performing), states or geographic clusters (are there stresses evident by location), gender (how are women run businesses faring), type of enterprise (Micro, Small and Medium), activity (Manufacturing, Trading and Services) and so on.

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