Cashless India and Cashless Indians

It’s been more than 30 days now, since demonetization has taken place. But yet, scenes on the road seems to be the same. Though there is a little cut on queues, some places and people are still affected. As this note ban step is regarded as first ruthless action against black money, corruption and counterfeit currencies. Now the Government eyes on the next step that is “Cashless India”.

Is it possible ? Is it feasible? Can this be implemented right away ? Will it take time?

So many questions are rushing through everyone’s mind right now. With the country having literacy rate just at 74.04 %, are we going too fast towards cashless economy?

Well, absolutely no, on the contrary we are reaching slowly there. This should have happened little early. Some people are also raising concerns as to how villagers would be able to do online transactions or use debit and credit cards as they are not literate. 

But I personally feel, literacy has got nothing to do with cashless economy. We just need to create more awareness and share more information with each other and help more people to move towards Digital India.

As we all know, cashless economy will not only save cost of printing money, but also storage, handling cost and transportation cost. More importantly, it will also save time and energy spent on standing in ATM queue or bank queue.

If it has so many benefits, then why people were not using debit card or digital money or plastic money more often. Simply because there was no incentive attached to it. On the other hand they were punished to have used debit cards as they have to pay extra 14.5%  as service tax over and above the payment. Hence, to avoid this, retailers pushed for cash transaction. And this is how willingly or unwillingly black money is created.

After having reviewed the situation for the last 30 days, The Government of India has come up with some reliefs and remedies for common people.Government took a little shift in the policy. It has decided to respect, reward and provide more incentives to encourage cashless transactions or use of digital wallets.

Here are some of the important announcements came from Finance Minister “Arun Jaitley”.

        

1.    Discount of 0.75% on petrol and diesel, if payment is done through digital  money.
2.  No cess on cashless payment less than 2000:- No service tax will be charged on digital transactions upto Rs 2000.
3. 2 POS machines in Villages: - Government will provide 2 point of sale machines (POS) to 1lakh villages, which has a population up to 10000 through their financial inclusion fund. These machines will be deployed at primary co-operative societies, milk societies and agricultural input dealers to facilitate agri-related transactions through digital money. This step will cover nearly 75 crore of population in villages to transact through digital money.
4. Rupay Kisan Card :- With the help of NABARD, Government will support Rural Regional Banks and Cooperative Banks to issue “Rupay Kisan Cards to 4.32 crore farmers holding Kisan Credit Card to ensure and empower them to make digital transactions at POS machines or ATMs.
5.  Free accidental insurance upto 10 Lakh: - Nearly 58% of people who travel by train ,buy tickets online and here is good news for them. All railway passengers will get accidental insurance cover up to Rs 10 lakh ONLY if they buy tickets online.
6. More discount for railway passengers: - All the passengers travelling through rail transport do get services like catering, accommodation, retiring rooms etc. And everyone who pays for these services digitally will get 5 per cent discount.
7.      Incentive for policies sold online: - if you buy your policy from customer portal and pay online or by digital mode directly and not by cash. Public sector insurance companies will provide discount of 10 % in case of general insurance and 8 % in case of life insurance for new policies.
8.       Transaction fee waived off on digital payments :- Government departments and PSUs will bear transaction fee/MDR charges for the payment done through digital means and it will not be passed on to consumers. State Governments are being advised  that it should also consider to absorb transaction fee/MDR charges related to digital payments and same should not be passed to consumers.
9.      10% discount on card payments: - People using RFID cards and Fast tags at Toll Plazas on National Highways will fetch 10 % discount.
10.          Benefits of buying railway tickets online: - Near about 80 Lakh railway passengers use seasonal or monthly ticket on suburban railway. This expenditure amounts to Rs 2000 crore per year, which is largely in cash. From January 1, 2017 railway through its sub urban network shall provide discount up to 0.5 percent to passengers using digital means to make payments  for monthly or sesonal tickets.    

       After having read these benefits, it seems that Government want to play on front foot. And by all means it wishes to promote digital transactions. Some figures explained by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley indicates that switchover is visible and they wish to speed up the process. On the account of this, “Cashless India” is slogan for the moment going around to rebuild our “Incredible India”. 

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