RBI Bags Prestigious Digital Transformation Award 2025 for Digital Excellence

Central Banking London has selected the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the Digital Transformation Award 2025.

RBI has revealed about it in a post on X saying , "The Reserve Bank of India has been selected for the Digital Transformation Award 2025 by Central Banking, London, UK. RBI was awarded and recognised for its initiatives, including Pravaah and Sarthi systems, that have been developed by in-house developer team. The awards committee noted how these digital initiatives have reduced use of paper-based submissions thus transforming RBI’s internal and external processes."

In support of RBI’s selection for the award, the Central Banking, London said in a release that two initiatives have been key to this work. Sarthi, which means 'charioteer in Hindi, digitised all the RBI's internal workflows. It went live in January 2023, helping employees to store and share documents securely. This helped improving record management and increasing the options for data analysis through reports and dashboards.

The  second stage of the digital transformation process was launched in May 2024 named as  Pravaaha, which means 'smooth flow' in Hindi. This initiative  created a digitised means for external users to submit regulatory applications to the RBI. 

Documents submitted and processed through the Pravaah portal are then clubbed into the Sarthi database. In this step, they can be handled digitally across the RBI's offices, amid centralised cyber security systems and digital tracking.

It also said that the successful adoption of Sarthi depended upon the team's work in putting in place the necessary support structures. The IT team got engaged in a lengthy collaborative process with staff which was an effort to make them  understand the needs before building the system, and appointed senior 'nodal officers' from each department with the aim of  championing the upgrade. The online Sarthi Pathshala ('school') helped users become familiar with the system. The Pathshala was rolled out along with extensive in-person training. Additionally, Sarthi mitras ('friends') are people in each RBI office who know the system well and can help colleagues with any issues.