Tata Trusts, Google India partner with MobiKwik to encourage adoption of digital wallets

Tata Trusts and Google India expand the 'Internet Saathi' program by enabling cashless transactions through MobiKwik, with an aim to drive digital economy in rural parts of India.

Internet Saathi initiative aims to transform the lives of over 200 million with digital literacy in India. The initiative focuses on training communities to go online, whilst providing them access to internet powered devices and educating them about cashless payments.

"As a part of the Digital India initiative and Tata Trusts' overall digital strategy, our aim is to drive empowerment with a focus on digital innovation to create a revenue opportunity for the communities at a larger level with sustainable impact. Enabling digital wallet is a big step towards ensuring that the community benefits from services with great amount of saving in time and cost. Tata Trusts sees digital livelihoods as an opportunity that is truly path breaking and in line with the ethos of 'Lead, not follow'," said Project Director Tata Trusts, Raman Kalyanakrishnan.

Tata Trusts and Google India launched the Internet Saathi programme with an objective to reduce gender barrier for access to the internet and its benefits.

Launched in July 2015, Internet Saathi program is now live in 10 states reaching out to over 26,000 villages. Close to 12, 00,000 women have benefited from the programme by getting trained on digital and internet literacy.

"Demonetization has encouraged millions of Indians in rural villages to adopt the new way of wallet payments. However, most of them do not possess a smartphone and can't download and operate an app by themselves. Internet Saathis shall help resolve this issue at a grass root level, which is the need of the hour. Earlier this month, our government marked the beginning of a cashless revolution and this initiative is our contribution towards making wallet payments a reality for masses in India," said co-founder MobiKwik, Upasana Taku.

The community members are encouraged to actively seek information related to the daily livelihoods activities through the platform established in the village and adopt MobiKwik payments for their local or internet enterprises by the Internet Saathi programme.

Critically, the platform provides internet enabled devices and a trained person in Internet Saathi at the village. This transformational campaign is launching in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh today.

"We are thankful to Tata Trusts and Google India for extending their support to our vision of making mobile wallet payments ubiquitous," added Upasana.

Financial inclusion and digital payments: Internet Saathis are going to be

trained to be able to provide services such as online payment of utility bills, mobile bills and recharges of all leading telecom service providers, and to undertake mobile wallet transactions. Tata Trusts is partnering with Mobikwik, a leading mobile wallet, for delivering these services.

Digital citizenship services: Another such digital initiative is to provide access to information on social schemes for rural households with the help of an intelligent algorithm that maps households to eligible schemes. Tata Trusts has partnered with Haqdarshak for enabling the Internet Saathis deliver services in villages through a mobile application.

Frequently used services: The Internet Saathis are also being used as effective field functionaries by a leading mobile operator to serve as retailers of SIM cards, connections and top-up products in rural areas.

Digital communication agents: The potential of the extensive platform of Internet Saathi on the field is also being leveraged by engaging the Internet Saathis in developmental programmes, such as Swachh Bharat Mission, driving behavior change in communities.