Govt eyes big push to digital currency programme, says official

The Union government would expand the digital currency programme after a thorough evaluation, said M Nagaraju, secretary, department of financial services, ministry of finance.

“Our evaluation of the CBDC (central bank digital currency) is actually very positive. So, we are going to expand that,” he said, while responding to a question at a roundtable discussion at the Synergia Foundation in Bengaluru. “We would like to scale it up, so that the incentives are purpose-driven.”

Nagaraju said that new government schemes driven through digital currencies can help scale this programme. The CBDC, a digital currency issued by the central bank for everyday transactions, was launched in late 2022.


The digital currency has already been integrated into various schemes, including Subhadra Yojana, a direct benefit transfer (DBT) programme supporting women in Odisha, and the Delhi government's cash incentive scheme for women, he said, though he did not elaborate on specific implementation details.

This comes at a time when the volume of retail CBDC transactions has surpassed 120 million, with total value exceeding Rs 28,000 crore, RBI deputy governor T Rabi Sankar said at the post-monetary policy press briefing on December 5. The central bank is developing unique use cases through programmability and running experiments and pilots linked to government schemes, he said.

Nagaraju spoke at the roundtable on the subject "Digital Security and National Sovereignty." The event brought together senior military leaders, including retired lieutenant general M U Nair and lieutenant general P S Minhas, as well as security experts such as former Israeli cyber security director general Yigal Unna and cybersecurity research programmer at King’s College, UK, Tim Stevens.

Synergia Foundation president Tobby Simon said critical security infrastructure was now largely controlled by private actors, while stressing the need for convergence of expertise across military, security, intelligence, human security, and emerging technologies.