I GOT to experience Malaysia’s e-governance initiative and digitised government services even before I landed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA): Visitors have to file an online Malaysia Digital Arrival Card (MDAC), which I did from the comfort of my home in India. On arriving at KLIA with the pre-filled MDAC, it took me precisely two minutes to breeze through immigration with a “travel pass”!

On the road, however, I was amused to see my taxi driver use a fly swatter with an attached Touch ’N’ Go card to reach out of the window to pay a toll. Though India’s Internet penetration is a mere 52% with a fixed broadband speed of 94.62Mbps for download compared with a 97.4% penetration in Malaysia and download speeds averaging 100.57Mbps (as of January 2024), Indian FASTag users pass through toll booths without stopping, displaying a tag number on their vehicle’s windscreen, leaving it to RFID technology to deduct appropriate toll charges from the FASTag wallet.