Digital payment promotion schemes to be launched in 3 Punjab

The Centre has selected Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar for launching the 'Lucky Grahak Yojana' and 'Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana' to promote digital payments in Punjab.
Disclosing this here today, Additional Chief Secretary Finance Satish Chandra, after a video conference with Union Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha and his counterparts of other state governments, said the Centre has launched Lucky Grahak Yojana to encourage consumers and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana to encourage merchants for transition to digital payments.
The main focus of these schemes would be to bring the poor, lower middle class and small businesses into the digital payment fold, added Chandra.

He said that National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) would be the implementing agency for these schemes.
These award-based schemes would start from December 25, 2016 (Christmas) and end on April 14, 2017 (Baba Saheb Ambedkar Jayanti). The schemes have been launched by the Niti Aayog.
These schemes aim to give cash awards to consumers and merchants who utilise digital payment instruments for personal consumption expenditures, he said.

Transactions using USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data), UPI (Unique Payment Interface), RuPay and AEPS (Aadhar Enabled Payment System) will be covered under these schemes, he said.
Digital payments made through credit cards and e-wallets will not be covered, he added.

To ensure focus on small transactions, incentives will be restricted to transactions within the range of Rs 50 and Rs 3,000.
The winners shall be identified through a random draw of eligible transaction IDs by software to be especially developed by NPCI for this purpose.
Under Lucky Grahak Yojana, consumers making payment through digital mode will get chance to win Rs 1000 every day.
As many as 15,000 winners would get cashback prizes of Rs 1,000 each day. In addition, there would be weekly awards worth Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10,000 and Rs 5,000 for 7,000 people, he said.
On the last day of the scheme, a mega prize of Rs 1 crore would also be announced, he said.

Likewise, under Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana, merchants across the country doing business using POS (point of sale) machines would be eligible to win Rs 50,000 per week.
Mega prizes for merchants would be of Rs 50 lakh, Rs 25 lakh and Rs 12 lakh for digital transactions between November 8, 2016 to April 13, 2017 and awards would be announced on April 14, he said.