MEITY to promote digital transactions in place of NITI Aayog

NEW DELHI: The government has shifted the responsibility of promoting digital transactions in the country to the Ministry of IT and Electronics ( MEITY) from NITI Aayog.

"The central government has already changed the business transaction rules to enable MEITY to promote digital transactions, including digital payments," a source said.

The source added that the decision has been taken in view of the core competence of MEITY to promote digital means for various transactions.

The source said the government is of the opinion that NITI Aayog -- which is a think-tank -- should focus on monitoring and suggesting ways to improve various government schemes rather than getting involved with implementation.

The IT ministry is responsible for promotion of e-governance for empowering citizens as well as promoting inclusive and sustainable growth of electronics and IT in the country. It is also responsible for encouraging the growth of IT-enabled services industries.

Earlier, the government had set up a committee under the chairmanship of NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant to push adoption of e-transactions amid the cash crunch faced by citizens due to the note ban.

The government also wants to promote digital transactions to reduce its cash to GDP ratio to around eight per cent, which is at present hovering over 13 per cent in the country.

Earlier this month, NITI Aayog had made it public that 9.8 lakh consumers and merchants had been awarded over Rs 153.5 crore in about 2 months under its schemes to promote digital payments.

It implemented two programmes -- Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana -- to promote e-payments.

Aayog had said that of these of the 9.8 lakh winners, over 9.2 lakh were consumers, while 56,000 were merchants.