Lok Sabha Question No. 1308 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2018-07-25
Subject: Promotion of Digital Transactions
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: A.T. (NANA) PATIL, MD. BADARIDDOZA KHAN

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK  SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1308

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 25.07.2018

## PROMOTION OF DIGITAL TRANSACTIONS

## 1308.     SHRI  A. T. NANA PATIL:       SHRI MD. BADARUDDOZA KHAN:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

- (a) the details of Government initiatives taken for encouraging digital transactions in the country; and
- (b) the details of increase/decrease digital transactions in the country post demonetization, urban and rural area-wise?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI S.S AHLUWALIA)

- (a): Government of India has been working with various stakeholders including Ministries/Departments/States/Banks to promote digital payment transactions to make it more convenient for the citizens. A dedicated DigiDhan mission was set up with an aim to promote digital transactions. Digital payment App 'BHIM-Bharat Interface for Money' was launched on 30 th December, 2016. Government has taken following  initiatives to encourage digital transactions in the country :
- i)     Expansion of payment acceptance infrastructure:
-  As per the budget announcement for FY 2017-18, Banks were allocated a target to deploy 10 Lakh additional Point of  Sales  (PoS)  terminals. Against this target,  Banks installed  12.33  Lakh  new PoS  terminal.  Currently  a total of 33.20  Lakh  PoS  (till  May  2018)  terminals  have  been  deployed  in  the  country.  Ministry  of  Electronics  and Information Technology (MeitY) has further allocated a target to deploy 20 Lakh additional PoS terminals by the Banks in FY 2018-19.
-  BHIM  Aadhaar  Pay  enables  citizens  without  smart  phones  to  make  digital  payments  by  using  biometric authentication. Around 5.56 Lakh BHIM Aadhaar PoS have been deployed by the Banks in till May 2018. Banks are in the process of deploying and activating 20 Lakh Aadhaar based BHIM Aadhaar PoS in FY 2018-19.
-  Bharat QR 4.0 with a provision of accepting QR based payment payments using UPI was launched on 10 th August 2017. By 30 th April 2018, 26 Banks have been made live on Bharat QR as acquirer and 38 Banks have been made live on BHIM UPI PSP App. Till May 2018, Bharat QR was installed at 11.08 Lakh merchant locations.
- ii)   Incentive Schemes
-  MeitY vide gazette notification No 6(19)/2017-DPD-1 dated 27 th December 2017 has notified the reimbursement of Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges on Debit cards/BHIM-UPI/BHIM Aadhaar Pay transactions of value less than Rs 2000 to the Banks for a period of two years starting from 1 st Jan 2018. The reimbursement of MDR is aimed to improve the adoption of digital payments by merchants specially the small and micro merchants.
-  'BHIM Cashback Scheme for Individuals'  has  been  launched  to  popularize  payments  through  BHIM  APP.  The scheme have been modified and is operational till March 2019. The customer on BHIM app can earn an incentive up-to Rs 150 on 10 unique transactions over the BHIM app.
-  The BHIM Aadhaar merchant incentive scheme has been re-launched and the incentive has been increased from 0.25% to 0.5%. The scheme is operational 1 st April  2018 till  March  2019.  In  this  scheme  merchant  can earn  an incentive up-to Rs 2000 per month.
-  To give stimulus to the deployment of BHIM Aadhaar PoS devices, Government through Department of Financial Services has launched a scheme to provide an incentive of up-to Rs 1800 to the Banks on the procurement of each BHIM Aadhaar PoS.

## iii)  Coordination with Banks

-  Digital  payment transaction targets  have  been  allocated  to  the  Public  and  Private  Sector  Banks for  FY  2018-19. MeitY has set targets of 3013 Crore digital payment transactions.
-  The performance of the Banks is also monitored and evaluated by MeitY though a performance scorecard and a Bank ranking system.

-  Government of India has issued advisories to Central Ministries/Departments and States/UTs to improve payments acceptance infrastructure, enable the citizens to pay by a variety of modes such as Internet banking, mobile banking, and  mobile  applications  etc.  including  use  of  BHIM,  integrate  on-line  payment  portals  with  BHIM/UPI/QRcode/Rupay Card, printing of QR code on bills, incentivisation of digital payments and publicity and creation of awareness about digital payments among citizens.
- v)   Publicity Campaign
-  Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology have till date chosen the following mediums for the publicity campaign:
1.     Radio(Wireless Media)
2.     Newspaper(Print Media)
3.     Website(Digital Media)

## vi)  Monitoring, Analysis and Grievances

-  In order to create a platform for accurate reporting, monitoring and analysis of all digital payment transactions being carried out across the country, GOI has developed a National Digital Payment Dashboard, which was launched by Hon'ble Minister of Electronics and IT on 13 th February, 2018. The same could be accessed at http://www.digipay.gov.in.
-  MeitY  has  integrated  Digital  Payment  Grievances  along  with   National Consumer  Helpline  (NCH)  platform  of Department  of  Consumer Affairs  (DoCA)  in  addition  to  the  existing  Grievance  Redressal  Mechanism  of  digital payments  of  the  respective  banks  and  NPCI.  The  Platform is  live  and is  handling  Digital  Payment  related grievances.

(b): A significant growth has been observed in digital transactions in the country post demonetization at an average percentage of monthly growth rate of 4.25% (refer Annexure for monthly progress since Nov'16; Source: Banks, RBI, NPCI,  respective  closed  loop  players).  The  modes  used  for  calculation  of  growth  of  digital  transaction,  shown  in Annexure 1, are (1) National Automated Clearing House (NACH), (2) Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), (3) Unified Payments  Interface  (UPI),  (4)  Bharat  Interface  for  Money  (BHIM),  (5)  Unstructured  Supplementary  Service  Data (USSD),   (6) RuPay on POS, (7) RuPay on eCom, (8) Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), (9) Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), (10) National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC), (11) Debit Card (excluding RuPay), (12) Credit Card, (13) National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), (14) Mobile Wallet, (15) Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), (16) Pre-paid Card (PPC) and (17) Closed Loop. Urban and Rural area-wise data is not available. However, State-wise data for three modes, namely, BHIM, RuPay card and USSD, sourced from National Payment Corporation of India, is available on the dashboard having URL: http://www.digipay.gov.in.

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## Annexure

| Growth of Digital Transactions   | Growth of Digital Transactions   | Growth of Digital Transactions   |
|----------------------------------|----------------------------------|----------------------------------|
| Months                           | Volume                           | Value                            |
| Unit                             | In Crore                         | In Lakh Crore                    |
| Nov'16                           | 91.83                            | 112.27                           |
| Dec'16                           | 132.93                           | 124.57                           |
| Jan'17                           | 125.61                           | 113.94                           |
| Feb'17                           | 111.37                           | 107.98                           |
| Mar'17                           | 130.64                           | 172.61                           |
| Apr 17                           | 159.74                           | 148.43                           |
| May'17                           | 156.89                           | 151.45                           |
| June'17                          | 153.02                           | 154.43                           |
| July'17                          | 156.71                           | 145.76                           |
| Aug'17                           | 158.37                           | 151.15                           |
| Sep'17                           | 158.62                           | 169.20                           |
| Oct'17                           | 169.10                           | 156.44                           |
| Nov'17                           | 174.64                           | 165.07                           |
| Dec'17                           | 194.03                           | 169.44                           |
| Jan'18                           | 199.01                           | 182.04                           |
| Feb'18                           | 191.23                           | 152.16                           |
| Mar'18                           | 199.74                           | 216.86                           |
| Apr'18                           | 208.26                           | 163.67                           |
| May'18                           | 214.31                           | 179.83                           |
| Jun'18                           | 125.68                           | 31.89                            |
| JuL'18 (19th)                    | 77.06                            | 14.72                            |

th

*July'18 data is available till 19 July, 2018

NOTE: For month of Jun'18 & Jul'18 RBI data not published, hence has not been included.