Bottlenecks in NE digital transaction

By Our Reporter

SHILLONG, FEB 7: Union Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain on Tuesday assured that the centre will take steps to address various challenges faced by north eastern region with regards to universalisation of digital transaction.

“I am aware that there are certain challenges and barriers in universalisation of digital transactions and migration to digital economy in remote corners of North East where infrastructure and internet connectivity is poor,” he said.

He said there are also issues like lack of awareness of the benefits of digital transactions, poor financial literacy, difficulty in operationalisation bank accounts in remote areas with poor banking network and others.

Addressing at a one-day Digidhan Mela here, Gohain said, “I would like to assure that our government will take all possible steps in order to address these challenges and concerns.”

Stating that the mela is organized to spread awareness and disseminate information regarding various modes of digital payments, he said, “I call upon you to create more and more awareness among fellow citizens in order to inculcate the benefits of Digidhan and digital economy.”

He urged the people to come together and pledge to make transactions digital from now onwards and make India the strongest nation in the world.

Referring to the centre’s demonetization drive last year, Gohain said, “This dynamic and momentous step has been aimed at curbing the flow of black money, fighting corruption, weeding out fake currency.”

He informed that the move of the government has brought to focus the need to discourage circulation of huge cash in our economy and migrate towards digital payments.

He informed that in order to encourage people to go digital in their transactions, the government has launched two schemes – Lucky Grahak Yojana for consumers and Digi dhan Vyapar Yojana for merchants offering vast number of cash awards to those undertaking digital transactions.

Highlighting the several benefits of digital transactions, the union minister of state said this will lead to curbing tax avoidance, mitigate generation of black money, keeps check on inflation, enables huge savings to RBI on account of steep fall in procurement and printing of paper currency including its management.

“It will have a positive impact on environment due to less usage of paper which may in turn leads to reduction of Carbon Footprint,” he said while adding it will enable improvement in delivery of government welfare programmes by checking leakages and increase transparency and efficiency in service delivery.

Stating that banking services will be universally available, Gohain said it is reported that moving towards digital transactions will have a significant increase in the GDP of the country.

He also added, usage of cards and digital transaction means less cash in hand and hence reduction in vulnerability to crime.

The union minister of state also revealed that prior to demonetisation, only 1% of India’s population was paying their taxes.

“Now, more and more people are becoming part of our tax system which has prompted the government to lower the income tax for the benefit of small income groups in this budget. More funds are available with the government now,” he said.

Gohain said that ultimately, the beneficiary of all this exercise is the common man as more development works will be undertaken to develop the far flung areas of our country like the North East.

Already our government has accorded much needed impetus to the development of North Eastern states including focus on Act-East policy, he said.

“The transformation to digital means of payment and broadening of tax network is definitely going to be in the greater interest of our region and it will be ensured that the fruit of development reaches the last man,” he added.

Later, the union minister of state also launched the Mobi-Cash, a mobile application which will act as a wallet for all during the mela organized by the IT department in collaboration with NITI Aayog and Ministry of Electronics & IT.

Digital Taxi Awards and Digital Cobbler Award was also presented by the state IT&C Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh to four taxi drivers and a cobbler from Shillong for pioneering the use of digital transaction.