Digital cashless Indian economy without internet

 The demonetisation of currency notes completed 3 months. On 8^th November 2016 our Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this decision was to control black money, to avoid illegal & excess storage of high value currency notes, to reduce corruption and to control the finance resource for the terrorist activities.  But now the argument had been changed our Prime Minister Narendra modi including his cabinet ministers, party leaders & members are supporting demonetisation and saying it is a step towards cashless or digital economy.

 A piece of paper becomes mode of exchange because of RBI governor’s signature printed on it saying that ‘I PROMISE TO PAY THE BEARER THE SUM OF RUPEES’. If this assurance converted to digital use then it will be Digital cashless Indian economy.

It is not that much difficult to convert the cash which is the mode of exchange from physical to digital form. The debit/credit and other cards in the common people pockets tell you that our Indian economy is on its way to Digital cashless Indian economy. But here the question arise whether the Digital cashless Indian economy will be equivalent to present system that is cash in the physical form and you will find answer for this question very easily. Still many ATM’s hanging ‘no cash boards’ from last 3 months, people are standing in line in front of the banks to withdraw cash from their bank accounts are all examples for these.

No one will oppose the Digital cashless Indian economy because there were lot of work done for this since from early days of ICT (Information, Communication, and Technology) era. Among those most important were Digitalisation of banking system, core banking system, implementation of IMPS (Immediate payment service an instant electronic fund transfer service through mobile phones) and some other technologies were already designed. But the usage of these facilities are limited to cities, towns and those who have internet facilities. If you ask yourself this simple question you will come to know what are the difficulties  in making a Digital cashless Indian economy.

Up to the end of July 2016 only 38% of our scheduled banks have branches at rural areas. In India nearly there are 650 million (65 crores ) bank accounts. If you ignore the fact that few people having more than one bank account and consider one person one bank account still 300 million (30 crores) of people were out of banking service. If you believe that 90% of Adhaar card process completed as per the government report then still 60 lakhs of people are not having required documents or records to open a bank account.

Those who are supporting Digital cashless Indian economy including our NITI ayog chairman saying that in JAM system that is Jhan dhan, Adhaar number and mobile phones by using these three we can make Digital cashless economy.  But if you look in to deeper side you will see another picture. At present the number of mobile phones in India are around 900 million (90 crores) out of those only 25 crores of mobile phones have mobile wallet facilities and only 35 crores have internet facilities. This shows that Digital cashless Indian economy is unpraised to half of the population of the country. Then what’s the condition of the people those who have internet, mobile wallet, debit/credit and other cards, for every 10 lakh people only 693 card swipe machines are there and most of them are in cities.

The government won’t get success in making Digital cashless Indian economy out of all these difficulties because of insufficient internet network facility and there is no assurance by the government in improving infrastructure facilities to provide proper internet network which is the fuel for the Digital cashless Indian economy . If you give a visit to any rural area bank branch offices then you will come to know the wide and depth of this problem and some of you might have experienced it. In a month most of the days there are no transaction activities at these branches due to lack of sufficient power or electricity supply and internet network facilities. Then how the rural area people can use the paytm or other mobile wallets and cards?

Though the government put pressure on telecom companies and if it is possible to provide proper internet facilities to last village of the country still there will be lot of obstacles for the Digital cashless Indian economy. A piece of paper can be converted as valid currency note because of the RBI governor’s signature on it and digitalising this assurance is too complex. Our law makers should think beyond currency notes at present there are no proper laws to solve the problems arising out of using mobile wallets and other cards. There are no rules regulations and separate laws to manage issues if anyone hacks the information of your mobile wallet or cards. Cashless transaction means you are sharing your sensitive personal details with businessmen. Amazon, flipkart and other online stores will keep the details of your card with themselves if you pay them through credit/debit and in other cards. There is no necessity of OTP (one time password) or pin to pay in foreign currency. If anyone hacks the data base or server of amazon flipkart or any other online stores they will get all the details of the cards and by using that if they make transactions in foreign currency means you can’t do anything.

Conclusion: Of course there are benefits to government through Digital cashless Indian economy but it’s not known how much beneficial to government. If its implemented by using present laws, infrastructure facilities and safety measure the chances of incurring loss by the user or customer is more. So the government should concentrate and try to find solutions for these then there will be efficient and effective Digital cashless Indian economy.