On instructions of the Prime Minister's Office, the IT ministry held a meeting on Monday to discuss ways to promote digital payments to help tide over the cash crunch in the economy, following withdrawal of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes from circulation.
The meeting, which was presided by Minister of Information Technology, and Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad along with Minister for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal.
“The meeting was called on a directive from the PMO to evolve a strategy to fast track cashless transactions in the system to diffuse the current crisis,” according to an official aware of the development.
Those present at the meeting, included IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan, Divestment Secretary Neeraj Kumar Gupta, CSC e-Governance Services India CEO Dinesh Tyagi, besides NIC and UIDAI officials.
“Among options short listed are pushing payments via Common Service Centres (CSCs), mobile wallets and creating more awareness about Unified Payment Interface (UPI),” the official said.
He added that this will be followed by another meeting in the PMO, post which a roadmap is likely to be readied on ways to promote cashless transactions in the country.
The November 8 announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi rendered old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, worth over 14 lakh crore, illegal. Since then, people have been queuing up outside banks and ATMs to get the new currency. However, with the latter running out of cash frequently, there has limited cash availability.
