The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has decided to team-up with Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) to further promote digital payments among the retail community.

As many as 1 crore shopkeepers in about 1,000 towns of the country will be trained on digital payments under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between MeitY and CAIT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Electronics and IT Minister, said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

Prasad said that there was no timeline for completing the training (raise awareness level and increase adoption) of 1 crore shopkeepers.

“All that I can say is it will be done as fast as possible”, he said.

Meanwhile, Prasad also announced that MeitY rural Common Service Centre (CSC) through its outreach campaign ‘Digidhan Abhiyan’ has enrolled over 1 crore rural citizens for digital payments since its launch earlier this month.

Over 3 lakh merchants have started offering digital payment options to rural customers across various districts and blocks in rural India, Prasad added.

CAIT General Secretary, Praveen Khandelwal later told Business Line that the CAIT had started this journey of promoting benefits of digital payments two years back in association with global payments leader Mastercard.

“We are now fortunate that the Ministry of Electronics & IT has decided to encourage us more to take this initiative ahead and now aim at on boarding merchants to digital payments platforms”, Khandelwal said.

DIGITAL GROWTH

Prasad said that the rapid pace at which rural citizens are adopting digital methods of payment demonstrates their support and enthusiasm to be a part of digital transformation story of the country.

Reeling out data to show the success of growth in digital transactions, Prasad that between November 8 (when demonetisation was announced) and December 26, the number of Rupay card transactions rose from 3.8 lakh to 21 lakh per day. In value terms, the amount transacted with RuPay cardsincreased from Rs 39.17 crore on November 8 to Rs 282 crore on December 26.

In the case of e-wallets, Prasad said that the number of transactions grew from 22 lakhs per day on November 8 to 75 lakhs on December 26. The value of transactions done through e-wallets is Rs 88 crore on November 8 to Rs 293 crore on December 26.

As regards Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, the number of transactions has shot up from 50.02 lakhs per day on November 8 to 98 lakhs per day. The value of transactions has risen from Rs 1221 crore per day on November 8 to 1751 crore per day on December 26.

“There has been a phenomenal increase in digital payments. Digital awareness is rising. New bodies are coming in to improve awareness about digital payments. This is only the beginning," Prasad added.

srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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