New York, April 28 (TIWN) Direct money transfers via Aadhaar and the interoperable software layers called India Stack to India's financially vulnerable population have "saved" the country from long queues and panic during the ongoing COVID19 pandemic and "justified a 10x return on investment on the India Stack", Arvind Gupta, former CEO of MyGov and founder, Digital India Foundation, told IANS in a video interview.

As of April 22, the Indian government paid out Rs 31,235 crore in financial assistance to more than 330 million Indians, according to publicly available data.

Gupta, one of the architects of India's smart city project in the 2014 manifesto, spoke to IANS on the potential buildout of the India Stack in the post COVID19 era.

India has taken control of its "digital destiny", he said, by combining digital identity with the paperless layer of the India Stack which supports digital payments, verified paperless records and is linked with Aadhaar.