Will Digital Payments Work in Unsafe Digital India?

In order to incentivize digital payments, the Government of India, launched Sunday the Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana awards at the Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad launched the awards.

To make Digital payments and a less cash society a mass movement in India, the DigiDhan Mela will take place in 100 different cities across the country over the next 100 days until March.

To promote digital payment campaign, it was decided to further incentivise people who actively adopt digital platform for making day to day financial transactions.

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These digital payment steps are being taken because last month the Indian government had abruptly ordered to remove frequently used currency notes from the market.

The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi had demonetized currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 on November 8, saying that the step has been taken to check corruption and stop the flow of black money.

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Common people and opposition parties in India are up in arms against the government because the decision to stop the circulation of currency is causing severe hardships to commoners.

This war-like situation is causing deaths of innocent people who keep standing in queues even in harsh weather with the hope to get their old currency exchanged from banks.

NITI Aayog, along with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) as its implementation partner, has launched two major schemes – Lucky Grahak Yojana for consumers and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana for merchants.

By providing monetary rewards for undertaking Digital Transactions made with Rupay cards, AEPS, UPI Apps and USSD, these schemes attempt to attract general public and facilitate significant behavioural change among public.

Photo courtesy: Press Information Bureau