Promotion of digital payments essential for Digital India programme: Govt

Promotion of digital payments ecosystem is an essential aspect of Digital India programme and is aimed at digitizing the financial sector and economy with consequent benefits of efficiency, transparency and quality. Over the years, digital payment transactions have grown multifold from 2071 crore in FY 2017-18 to 5,554 crore in FY 2020-21. During current financial year ie FY 2021-22, the total number of 8193 crore digital payment transactions have been reported till 20th March, 2022*. Bharat Interface for Money-Unified Payments Interface (BHIM-UPI) has emerged as the preferred payment mode of the citizens and has achieved a record of 452.75 crore digital payment transactions with the value of Rs 8.27 lakh crore till 28th February 2022. The total number of digital payments undertaken during the last three years and current year is as under:

Source: Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) & Banks

The following major steps have been taken for promotion of Digital Payments by Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY):

1. The incentive scheme for promotion of RuPay Debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions (P2M) has been initiated by MeitY to give a further boost to digital transactions in the country. This scheme facilitates Banks in building robust digital payment ecosystem, promoting RuPay Debit card and BHIM-UPI digital transactions, across all sectors and segments of the population and further deepening of digital payments in the country.
2. Various other Incentive/cashback schemes were launched by MeitY for changing the customer/merchant behaviour for faster adoption of digital payments. Some of them were BHIM Cashback schemes for Individuals & Merchants, BHIM Aadhaar Merchant Incentive Scheme, BHIM-UPI Merchant On-boarding Scheme Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) Reimbursement scheme.
3. MeitY issued advisories to Central Ministries/Departments and States/UTs to improve payments acceptance infrastructure and thereby enable the citizens to pay by a variety of modes such as Internet banking, mobile banking, and mobile applications etc.
4. MeitY launched the scheme titled “Pradhan MantriGramin Digital SakshartaAbhiyan (PMGDISHA)” to usher in digital literacy in rural India.
5. MeitY advised all Banks and Payment Service Providers to undertake awareness campaigns for promotion of secure payment practices and generate information security awareness. Materials are disseminated through portals- “www.infosecawareness.in”, www.cyberswachhtakendra.gov.in .
6. Awareness campaigns were organized in the Capital Cities of North East to promote digital payments including BHIM app. MeitY also ran Newspaper campaigns, Digital Theatre Campaigns, FM Radio campaigns and hoarding campaigns to promote digital payments.
7. Various promotion and awareness campaigns, through traditional means of publicity as well as emergent means such as social media platforms, have been initiated to encourage citizens to use digital payments.
8. As part of the week-long ‘AzadiKa Digital Mahotsav’, MeitY celebrated, India’s Digital Payment Journey through a marquee ‘Digital Payment Utsav’. The day celebrated the journey and rise of digital payments in India and brought together leaders from the Government, Banking sector, Fintech companies, and Startups. Top Banks were awarded & recognized in various categories for achievements in FY 2019-20 and FY 2020-21 towards the promotion of Digital Payments.
9. MeitY has integrated Digital Payment Grievances along with Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MoCA) for utilizing it with National Consumer Helpline (NCH) platform of Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA). All the major banks and financial service institutions have been on-boarded on NCH Platform. The platform is live and receiving Digital Payment related grievances.
10. In order to ensure safety and security of digital payments, various steps have been taken by the Government and Reserve Bank of India(RBI)

Total value of digital payments paid through UPI in the country during the last three years and current year is as under:

This information was given by the Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

CT Bureau