Modi govt's digital India push, how it has changed the way we transact?

New Delhi, Oct 18: The Narendra Modi-led NDA government's Digital India push has brought about a significant change in the way financial transactions happen in the country. The cash transactions have come down and this has paved way for a range of new modes of payments.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push for a digital India, Start-up India programme and demonetization has truly propelled the use of digital transactions in India. To incentivise the move towards a cashless economy, the government came up with various discounts and freebies on digital transactions.

Not only do e-payments make financial transactions easy, it also helps the government keept rack of the movement of money. This in turn brings down tax evasion and increases government's revenue. As Finance Minister keeps saying that a digital transaction leaves a trail, it brings more and more people into the tax bracket. Since government's digital push the tax collections have indeed gone up.

Another benefit is that people no longer need to carry wads of cash, plastic cards, or even queue up for ATM withdrawals. It's also a safer and easier spending option when one is travelling.

A recent survey said India's overall ranking on the government's adoption of e-payments has moved up to 28th in 2018, from 36th in 2011, but it needs to do more on digital infrastructure access and socio-economic factors. The country is taking "rapid strides" in advancing government e-payments capabilities and is is one of the top-performing countries in terms of citizen-to-government (C2G), business-to-government (B2G) and government-to-business (G2B) transactions, the survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit commissioned by payments company Visa said.

The mobile tariffs have also come down under the Modi regime. Consumers have been the clear winners, as the cost of sending and receiving data wirelessly has plummeted.

The plunge in prices has led to surge in data traffic to 1.5 billion gigabytes a month last year, according to Amitabh Kant, chief executive officer of NITI Aayog.

Digital India, launched by prime minister Narendra Modi on July 1, 2015, is an umbrella campaign which encompasses various government campaigns like UDAN, UJALA and several others, launched to take India a tech-first country. Digital India has also promised broadband connection to 2,50,000 villages by 2019, and with a budget of Rs 3,073 crore for FY 18-19, it plans to generate numerous jobs too.