Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Telecom News, ET Telecom
“Digital payment transactions have grown steadily over the past few years. Over the past four years, digital payment transactions have grown from 1,004 crore in fiscal year 2016-2017 to 5,554 crore in fiscal year 2020-21. Transaction details by State / UT are not kept. ,” he added.
The minister said the number of digital transactions stood at 3,134 crore (FY19), 4,572 crore (FY20), 5,554 (FY21) crore and 4,683 crore (FY22 through mid-November).
Citing a report from the Reserve Bank of India, Chandrasekhar said India has a strong regulatory system and robust high value and retail payment systems that have contributed to the rapid growth in transaction volume in these countries. payment systems.
There has been substantial growth in government electronic payments and also digital infrastructure in terms of mobile networks, according to the report.
The report highlights the need for further efforts to reduce the volume of paper clearing and increase the acceptance infrastructure to improve digital payments in India, he added.
In response to a separate question, Chandrasekhar said that the Ministry of Electronics and Informatics (MeitY) has rolled out the digital village project on a pilot basis in 700 villages (with at least one Gram Panchayat or village per district by State / UT) in October 2018 for the delivery of various citizen-centered services, namely education and health, skills and financial inclusion, and solar lights.
A total expenditure of Rs 98.32 crore has been allocated to the implementation of the Digital Village Pilot project.
Responding to another question, the Minister said that MeitY had announced the Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge. Launched in August 2020, the initiative aims to strengthen the capacities and capacities of the Indian semiconductor ecosystem by developing systems and solutions around two indigenous microprocessors, namely the Shakti and Vega processors.
“As part of the challenge, 6,170 teams (with approximately 10,000 participants) signed up as startups, educational institution students and innovators from across the country. Hundreds of teams received financial support. as well as FPGA hardware boards ported with Swadeshi microprocessors to develop innovative proof of concept solutions around Swadeshi microprocessors, ”he said.
He added that in addition to this, mentoring support to the top 10 challenge winners has been included for the incubation of their startups in an incubation center identified across the country for the translation of their material prototypes developed at using Swadeshi microprocessors.
“The total allocation for the Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge is Rs 5 crore,” he said.