The dream of cashless India cannot manifest without adequate consumer education

The dreams of digital India are still far-fetched! Seeing the current state of affairs, the dream for a digitally literate India appears like one of the first-world problems. Changing age-old norms and behavioural patterns are going to take a lot of effort than demonetising currency notes. Indians are used to spending and saving in cash, for the simple reason of avoiding taxes and convenience.

Besides, keeping digital literacy aside, India’s literacy level cries for serious reforms, with almost one-third of the population still illiterate, unable to even sign, the same is a huge challenge. The same section cannot, hence, enjoy an access to a host of services necessary for digital India, including smartphones, mobile wallets, and online portals.

The network infrastructure at present in India continues to also be a deterrent. India ranks 91 on the Networked Readiness Index 2016, released by the World Economic Forum. While urban cities still have a relatively developed networking infrastructure, the situation is further worse in rural India. At present, the internet penetration in the households lies low at 15 percent. The demonetisation can only be a momentary steroid for cashless transactions, with the people falling back to their previous habit of cash transactions, given an absence of the proper infrastructure.
The government, of course, recognises these challenges. It had launched the Digital India initiative prior to the demonetisation drive. As a consequence, nearly 1oo crore Indians, including 93 percent adults today have access to Aadhaar cards. Furthermore, the Jan Dhan bank accounts launched by the Indian Government have today reached to 24 crore Indians, further spreading financial inclusion and offering Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT). Although the accounts remained inactive for the long part of the year, the same has been actively used ever since the demonetisation announcement.

To further support its demonetisation drive, the government set up a committee meant to facilitate complete conversion of the Government-Citizen transaction to digital platforms. The committee is further headed by Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog. The committee is meant to solve the crucial task of identifying digital payment systems and make the same more accessible and easy to use by users. Besides, in a bid to incentivise cashless transactions, the government further announced Lucky Grahak and Digi-Dhan Vyapari Yojana, allocating a budget of Rs 340 crore.