Digital payments by various electronic means have jumped multi-fold (270-1,300 per cent) between November 8 and December 7, the government said on Friday.

For instance, transactions through e-wallets, which had 17 lakh transactions a day as of November 8, have risen to 63 lakh transactions/day as of December 7. Value-wise, this was ₹52 crore/day as on November 8 and has grown multi-fold (267 per cent) to ₹191 crore/day on December 7, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, told reporters here.

“There are 47 crore workers, out which 92 per cent are in the informal sector, of which around 40 per cent are women. So, if they are paid digitally, they will get minimum wages, which many have not gotten till today (as per daily wage rule),” Prasad said.

Citing the example of Amul’s operations in Gujarat, which were mainly through cash transactions before November 8, the Minister said all these have now gone digital.

Prasad said a major part of the Common Service Centres across the country (around two lakh centres) are engaged in cashless transactions and once more such centres are set up (2.50 lakh), digital payments would become a “habit” of the people.

The Minister also said that like the rise in use of e-wallets over the past one month, the use of RuPay cards, Point-of-Sale (PoS) devices, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) had also grown.

For instance, the number of transactions through UPI was 3,721 as of November 8, and had gone up to 48,238 transactions/day. In terms of value, this is higher at ₹15 crore/day as of December 7, against ₹1.93 crore/day on November 8. Meanwhile, in another step to promote cashless transactions, the government has started a television channel called ‘DigiShala’, a Doordarshan free-to-DTH channel, to raise awareness among people.

TV channel

The channel will impart information and education, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, on the digital payment ecosystem, its tools, benefits and processes.

The channel will also encourage viewers to use digital payments in their everyday life, and will be available through GSAT15 (DD Direct DTH), 93.5 degree East, Receive frequency: 11590 Mhz, the government said. The potential viewership of the channel is expected at more than two crore across the country, and it will be available without any subscription fee.

“The channel would show programmes depicting step by step demos of making digital payments using UPI, USSD, Aadhaar, e-wallets, cards and various talk shows and panel discussions with experts, as well as information about products and services under the Digital India programme,” Prasad said.

The Ministry has also conceptualised a campaign — ‘Digi Dhan Abhiyan’ — to enable every citizen, small trader and merchant to adopt digital payments in their everyday transactions. It will coordinate and run the Digi Dhan Abhiyan in effective partnership with other ministries of the Centre and State governments.

As part of the programme, the government will also tell people how to safeguard their accounts from cyber crimes and phishing.

Prasad also met senior officials of telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, BSNL and Reliance Jio, to discuss how they can help in promoting digital payments.

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