It’s just been a month after money demonetisation and the government has disclosed swing of incentives in order to promote cashless payments. These cashless payments can be done for insurance, rail travel, fuel and insurance and they also benefit the individuals. Also, the service taxes that were charged on merchants and digital transactions of about 2000 rupees on a single transaction were scrapped off. The use of old 500 notes was curtailed and they won’t be accepted on railway counters too from now on.
Mr. Arun Jaitley, the finance minister had announced 11 steps for pushing a cashless economy and for retaining the public support. But all this has created long queues at ATM and only limited cash reaches the banks which is the major issue for all the chaos in our country.
The government told the world newspapers that the decision that was taken on 8th November to scrap down 500 and 1000 rupees notes actually is major step for fighting with fake currency and black money. From 8th November till now, the government has offered tax penalties to those who have declared unaccounted cash and promoting digital payments.
The state-run fuel companies are offering a discount of 0.75% to consumers when they buy diesel and petrol using debit or credit cards and any other digital methods. This only means that if you spend Rs 4,000 in buying petrol and diesel in a month, you can save up to Rs 30 and decrease the outgo to Rs 3,970 by swiping your debit cards and credit cards or use any other digital payment methods.
This scheme had a potential of encouraging and shifting approx 30% more customers that further helps in reducing the cash requirements of about 2lakh crore in a year. Arun Jaitley told India newspapers that about 4.5 crore customers that buy diesel/petrol at petrol pumps per day can get to avail this incentive. It is estimated that petrol and diesel worth Rs 1,800 crore is sold per day of which nearly 20% is paid through digital means. In November, the rate increased to 40% and cash transaction of Rs 360 crore per day shifted to cashless methods.
The individuals who buy tickets online for rail travel will get free accident insurance cover of up to Rs 10 lakh. This facility wouldn’t be available to those who buy tickets at ticket counters. Also this scheme is currently limited only to a few trains. Jaitley told that 14 lakh railway passengers buy tickets everyday out of which 58% of tickets are booked and bought online through digital means. It has been seen that another 20% of passengers have shifted to digital payment methods which implies that about 11 lakh passengers in a day will be covered in accidental insurance scheme.
According to India newspapers, from 1st January, those who will buy seasonal and monthly tickets from credit cards, debit cards or any other digital methods, they can avail discount of about 0.5%.