Is cashless India a distant reality?

Making India completely digital and going cashless is not possible right now. For that to happen, we need financial literacy. More importantly, we need digital literacy. We can’t force people to go digital in a country where two-thirds of the population reside in villages. Almost a quarter of the rural populace doesn’t have mobile phones, let alone smartphones. Many villagers do not have a bank account. They do not know how to open an account. Yet, we are forcing people to go cashless due to demonetization. That’s not the way to use technology. Basically, it is created for urban India and we can’t impose it on everyone.

—Prasenjit Bose, Economist

Cashless transactions are very difficult for a middle-class person like me who doesn’t know how to use a digital-payment platform. We are the ones affected by these cashless applications. People like me are now slowly getting to know about digital wallets. Some of us have started using them. Sometimes I get 11 rides in a day and don’t get paid in cash at all. People mostly prefer paying through digital wallets as it is convenient for them. And that is when the problem starts. I have to incur day-to-day expenses such as filling CNG and buying lunch. Sometimes a constable asks for a bribe. How do I pay him? Through card? If I want to drink tea, how do I pay the tea-stall owner? It feels good when the media asks us for our views because nobody cares for our opinion.

—Abdul Majid, Ola driver

I frequently use Ola and Uber cabs. I find their offers and schemes fantastic. If I book an Uber ride from Snapdeal, I almost every time get Rs 50 or Rs 100 off on my rides. These schemes and offers don’t apply when you pay in cash. For a person like me who often travels by cabs, digital wallets like Ola money or Paytm help me save a lot of money. 

If I put a bigger amount on one of these digital wallets, I get better schemes and offers. So far, I haven’t come across any driver who cribbed about these digital wallets or asked me to pay in cash. I get messages everyday from taxi aggregators providing me with various codes and discounts. It is very convenient to use these digital platforms and is a complete win-win situation for me.

—Rahul Bohora, commuter