NITI Aayog to provide Rs 5 lakh per district to boost cashless digital payment

New Delhi: To encourage each district in the country to take the digitization route without fear, the NITI Aayog will be immediately transferring Rs.5 lakh to every one of them as seed money to kick start this drive.

• The purpose is to give a boost to cashless digital payment systems across districts, talukas and panchayats.
• It will enhance seeding of mobile and Aadhar numbers to the bank account, issue of Rupay cards wherever necessary, issue of PIN wherever necessary, downloading of app wherever necessary and finally achieving two successful transactions.
• The central government has taken number of measures to provide incentives to district administrations to promote the transition to the cashless digital payment systems.
• According to the NITI Aayog, some of the initiatives include incentives for digital payments for day to day financial transactions like buying or selling goods/services, and transferring money.
• A letter has been written to district collector, commissioners and magistrates in this regard by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who is also member of the committee to promote cashless payments.
• For availing the incentive, the district collector, commissioner or magistrates would have ensure that individuals transiting to digital payment mode should do at least two successful transactions by any of the five methods.
• These five modes are - unified payment interface (UPI), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Aadhaar Enabled Payments, e-wallets and Rupay debit/credit/prepaid cards.
• According to the letter, the top ten best performing districts of India will be awarded the Digital Payment Champions of India Award by NITI Aayog.
• Similarly, the 50 panchayats which go cashless will be awarded digital payment award of honour.