I don't think anyone in GOI feels Digital India == aadhar. That's only part of it. Digital India is about creating the ecosystem which starts from providing Internet access, digitizing more govt services, creating awareness among rural population to sell their goods(my uncle sells cotton online through a govt portal now), access health care services etc. Farmers now get their alerts from Indian Agriculture dept, Irrigation dept etc.
Yes, change has happened, and it got much faster after the 1991 reforms, but what has that to do with digital india?
Calling Jugnoo/uber/ola = companies serving customers.
Pay bills for water/elec/banking = same as above.
Residential ownership digitized - as are several other records, and this has been going on for a while.
To get a phone you need proof of ID, and aadhar isnt the only one.
BUT - in my life time I have seen it become compulsory to provide ID when you go to stay at a hotel (this is from before 2005), extensive ID to buy... well almost anything.
Want to know who got what medicines, then got onto a flight, and went to which hotel, along with other persons who went to the same place?
Well thats the system we are building.
And the aadhar team has by design (and I know that some of those guys probably come to HN) created a "market place" style system. Anyone can and is supposed to use their infra to validate ID data.
Thing is, I am old enough (and not even that old) to remember when you didn't need it. When there were not scanners in front of malls and in front of hotels (post 26/11 additions. I saw them come up).
The west built their success with systems which worked, not tech magic bullets, and thats always what counts in the end