A fillip to NITI Aayog’s incentive schemes on Digital Payments promotion

7.6 lakh citizens receive reward money worth ₹ 117 crore in 45 days for embracing Digital Payments

The initiative to make Digital Payments a mass movement in India through NITI Aayog’s two incentive schemes – Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana – has reaped huge dividends in just 45 days since its launch.

Latest data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which has been executing the schemes, shows that ₹ 117.4 crore has been disbursed as reward money to over 7.6 lakh consumers and merchants, as on February 7, 2017. In addition to the daily cash backs to 15,000 consumers, 90 additional consumers and 3,000 merchants have won ₹ 1 lakh and ₹ 50,000 each as weekly prize money for adopting digital mode of payments.

The schemes have seen active participation from both males and females. The latest data shows that Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka have emerged as top five states with maximum number of winners. While majority of the winners are in the age group of 21 to 30 years, the diversity in their age group ranges from 15 to 66 years of age. The involvement of the elderly in the mass movement challenges the notion that they find it challenging to embrace technology to adopt digital payments.  

The winners of the two schemes are also seen as belonging to diverse socio-economic backgrounds, from farmers, merchants, small entrepreneurs, professionals, housewives to retired persons. An analysis of the reward data also reveals winners as belonging to a wide geographical cross-section, including rural and urban areas.  It is interesting to note that the benefits of using digital payments have reached every part of India, with winners being spread across every State.  

Isham Singh, a 66 year-old farmer from the municipal committee of Assandh in Karnal, for instance, is a winner of Lucky Grahak Yojana for consumers. He was introduced to digital payments only a month before he won the lucky draw. Anshul Gangwar, a 23 year-old technician from Ahmedabad too won ₹ 1,00,000 under the scheme. Mangesh Anantrao Jadhav, a 27 year-old police officer and proud supporter of digital payments from Nashik  is another consumer who has won big for employing user-friendly methods of Digital Payments.

Among merchants, R Durairaj, a daily needs store owner from Dharampuri district in Tamil Nadu, won ₹ 50,000 as part of the weekly prize under Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana for merchants. Yashpal Darbi, a 37 year-old merchant of a small clothing store owner from Solapur, in Maharashtra too is a proud winner of ₹ 50,000 under our Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana.

About the schemes:

NITI Aayog’s two schemes are - Lucky Grahak Yojna (LGY) and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojna (DVY). They were launched on December 25, 2016 and shall remain open till April 14, 2017. Schemes are aimed at incentivising both consumers and merchants to promote digital payments. There are 15,000 daily winners qualifying for total prize money of ₹ 1.5 crore. In additional to this there are over 14,000 weekly winners qualifying for total prize money of over ₹ 8.3 crore every week.

Customers and merchants using RuPay Card, BHIM / UPI (Bharat Interface for Money / Unified Payments Interface), USSD based *99# service and Aadhaar Enabled Payment Service (AePS) are eligible for wining daily and weekly lucky draw prizes.

NPCI is also working with the government to organise Digi Dhan Melas at 110 locations till April 14, 2017 by demonstrating the above mentioned products to promote digital payment. Till February 7, 2017, 45 Digi Dhan Melas have been organised. This will help to inculcate digital payments as a habit amongst the masses.

Highlights:

• All transactions done by consumers and merchants from November 9, 2016 till April 14, 2017 will be eligible for winning prize under the scheme.
• All such transactions irrespective of the fact whether it has won daily / weekly prize, will be eligible for Mega Draw to be conducted on April 14, 2017.
• There are three mega prizes for consumers worth ₹ 1 crore, ₹ 50 lakh and ₹ 25 lakh. For merchants too there would be three mega prizes worth ₹ 50 lakh, ₹ 25 lakh and ₹ 12 lakh.
• The draw of winners are presented at different centres on each day by the senior officials of NPCI in the presence of senior minister from GOI, representatives of NITI Aayog and general public.
• Schemes have total outlay of ₹ 340 crore of which - ₹ 300 crores would be spent on consumers and merchants while the remaining ₹ 40 crore on awareness and publicity. Total winners under the scheme are expected to be over 18.75 lakh.