Cabinet approves Rs 2,600 crore scheme to promote RuPay debit cards, low-value BHIM-UPI transactions

In a statement, the government said the scheme would help in building a robust digital payment ecosystem and would also promote UPI Lite and UPI 123PAY as economical and user-friendly digital payment solutions in line with the objective of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’.

The government said the digital payment transactions, which witnessed remarkable growth over the years, facilitated functioning of businesses, including small merchants, and helped in maintaining social distancing during the Covid-19 crisis.

Citing numbers, the Centre said total digital payments transactions registered a year-on-year growth of 59 per cent, rising from 5,554 crore in FY2020-21 to 8,840 crore in FY2021-22. BHIM-UPI transactions registered a year-on-year growth of 106 per cent, rising from 2,233 crore in FY2020-21 to 4,597 crore in FY2021-22.

The current year’s scheme has been formulated in compliance with the 2022-23 Union Budget announcement in which Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated the government’s intent to continue the financial support for digital payments. In financial year 2021-22 too, the government had approved an incentive scheme in compliance with the budget announcement of FY2021-22 to give a further boost to digital transactions.