The committee of senior ministers constituted on the directions of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to push for digital payment ecosystem in the country, has proposed Aadhaar identification for cashless transactions, including linking of point of sale (PoS) machines with UIDAI.
“In today’s (Wednesday’s) meeting it was decided to use UIDAI in a big way to push cashless society on a priority basis...It can play a major role in digitisation,” a government official aware of the meeting told The Hindu .
The panel comprises Electronics and Information Technology and Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Oil and Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Health Minister J.P. Nadda, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
The official added that efforts would now be made to link PoS (point of sale) or card swipe machines and Internet banking with UIDAI, enabling payments using Aadhaar number.
Currently, there are about 75 crore debit and credits cards in the country, 108 crore Aadhaar cards have been issued, and over 35 crore bank accounts are linked to Aadhaar.
In the previous meeting of the committee earlier this week, the panel had identified schools, common service centres (CSCs), health centres, petrol pumps, co-operative societies and rural development outlets to push cashless transactions.
