Empowering sustainable development through digital transformation: insights from digital India

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Purpose The Indian government’s launch of Digital India initiative is critical to achieving a sustainable future by leveraging digital capabilities to promote social justice, economic prosperity and environmental stewardship. There are a lot of factors affecting digital India’s transformation to achieve sustainable development goals. This study aims to identify, examine and develop an empirical model estimating the relationship among enablers affecting and enhancing digital India’s transformation toward sustainability. Design/methodology/approach Following a thorough review of the literature, 10 key enablers were identified and analyzed using the total interpretive structural model (TISM). This novel approach has been adopted to analyze the hierarchical linkage between identified Enablers. Further Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée à un classement (MICMAC) analysis technique is used to evaluate the driving and dependence power among enablers. Findings Findings show that the government’s supportive policy is the strategic enabler with the highest driving power, positioned at the bottom of the model. The government must support digital empowerment initiatives to ensure all individuals have access to the information they require to make proper decisions regarding their lives. This study examines the literature to generalize the findings to focus on the motivator of digital India transformation to achieve sustainable development goals. Research limitations/implications This study suggests that TISM and MICMAC-based hierarchical models help practitioners, managers and other stakeholders to focus more on strategic factors to enhance the performance aspects of digital transformation. Government, business and academic cooperation promotes a comprehensive approach to environmental sustainability by stimulating innovation and digital approach implementation. Originality/value In addition, it offers novel insights into the enablers, such as how the identified enablers interact with one another depending on the drive and dependency power to achieve the goals of digital India’s transformation to achieve sustainable development goals.