NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, February 1, 2018

The government is set to fall drastically short of its ambitious target of 25 billion digital transactions for this financial year, but experts insist that its multipronged efforts to promote a less-cash economy have been not all in vain.

Only about 14.8 billion digital transactions were undertaken across India from April 1 to January 28, show data sourced from the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY). This includes bank-to-bank electronic money transfers, digital wallet payments, Aadhaar-based and electronic toll payments.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley declared the 25-billion target in his Union Budget for 2017-18 a year ago as part of the government’s hard push to digitize India’s economy. A few bankers and payments industry executives said while the goal was too ambitious it provided the digitisation efforts a huge boost. Others, though, are calling for more drastic measures.