Fifteen lakh citizens opting to make cashless payments for transactions between Rs. 50 and Rs. 3,000 through RuPay cards, Unified Payment Interface, the Aadhaar-enabled payment systems and USSD will get Rs. 1,000 in a cash-back incentive under a lucky draw scheme announced by the Centre.
Calling the Lucky Grahak Yojana a Christmas gift for citizens, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said the scheme, to be launched on December 25, would cover all transactions made from November 8 — when the demonetisation of high-value currency was announced — to April 13, 2017.
“As money comes back into the system, we don’t want to give rise to a new parallel economy with black money, so these schemes are meant to incentivise consumers to move away from cash. As the Prime Minister has said, we can’t make the economy cashless, but let’s make it a less-cash economy,” Mr. Kant said.
Grand prize winners will get Rs. 1 crore, Rs. 50 lakh and Rs. 25 lakh at the end of of the programme’s first phase, while there will be weekly prizes of Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 5,000. Transactions made through private banks’ credit cards and e-wallets such as Paytm would not be eligible.
