Cashless India

Cashless India is a move that has assumed significance in the backdrop of demonetisation of high value currency by the NDA government at the Centre. On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 and took the people by surprise. People standing in spiralling queues at ATMs and banks’ counters to exchange their old currency notes or withdraw cash became a familiar scene across the country.

However, the new cashless revolution ignited by this move has gradually started changing the mindset of people, who were earlier mostly dependent of currency notes only for doing transactions.

Benefits of cashless India

1. Cashless transaction does away with any hassle to carry cash.
2. It is in keeping with the worldwide trend. People need not carry any cash in various countries around the world as most of the transactions there are done electronically.
3. In digital transactions, you can view history of your expenses at one go which helps you to manage your budget easily.
4. Since cashless transactions are traceable, they invite payment of taxes, wherever applicable, thus ruling out use of black money.
5. As tax collections become easy through the cashless mode, it accelerates the pace of economic development, making it easier for the government to spend on education, health care, employment generation, infrastructure and the overall welfare of the people.
6. Increased tax collections lead to reduction and simplification of the tax structure.
7. Transfer of monetary benefits to the poor and the needy through bank transfer rules out their exploitation by the unscrupulous middle men.
8. Cashless transactions deal a body blow to counterfeit currency or distribution of black money through Hawala channels. It also cuts the supply of unaccounted money used in funding of criminal and terrorist activities.
9. It saves the government substantial costs in printing and circulation of currency notes.
10. Increased liquidity of money with the banks makes them lower their interest rates puts the huge amounts of cash deposited with them to some productive use.

Conclusion: A part of Digital India programme, the concept of cashless economy in India is centred around the vision of transforming the country into a society, which is digitally enabled and empowered by several modes of cashless transactions. Consequently, digital modes like credit/debit cards, mobile wallets, banks pre-paid cards, UPI, AEPS, USSD, Internet banking etc have gained in currency, leading to cashless India in near future.