A push too hard

Digital payment mandates should be avoided

Budget 2019-20 continued the government’s push towards digitising the Indian economy, particularly digital payments. To further corral the remaining cash-based sections of the economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said withdrawals from a particular bank account totalling more than Rs 1 crore in a year would require tax to be deducted at source. There can be few objections to this notion — certainly, it is far less draconian than other measures that were being proposed at the time of demonetisation.

However, other aspects of the Budget’s policy outline for digital payments should be re-examined. The finance minister pointed out that “low-cost