Faridabad second in digital transactions

Bijendra Ahlawat

Faridabad, the most populated district in Haryana, has secured the second position in digital transactions in 2018. The Digital India programme is a dream project of Narendra Modi’s government started in 2014-15 to reduce cash transactions in the country.

According to a report of the State Level Bankers Committee for the period April to December 2018, neighbouring Gurugram was at the top in digital transactions. Faridabad, which reported around 2.79 crore transactions in the nine-month period, came second. Interestingly, total digital transactions in Gurugram were around 11.50 crore, which was 75.74 per cent more than the transactions in Faridabad. This is perhaps due to the fact that Gurugram is a bigger commercial hub housing a large number of offices and headquarters of multinational companies, says an official. 

Panipat is placed third, though the number of digital transactions has not been revealed. The State level Bankers Committee is an organisation of leading banks based at Chandigarh and it collates the data of banking and other transactions of each quarter (three months).

Digital transactions can be broadly defined as online or automated transactions that take place between people and organisations without the use of paper. Digital transactions improve tracking capabilities, which help in reducing errors.

While the digital mode is now a routine for urban people, it is certain to become more popular for it being hassle free. Though a large number of complaints of cheating and fraud have been lodged during this period, bank officials and experts say that loopholes in the system can be plugged with proper education and awareness, besides strengthening research and development to remove deficiencies. 

Digital payments increased manifold after the demonetisation decision two years ago. As per the data available with the RBI and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), there has been a steep rise in digital payments in popular channels such as the National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) and mobile phone banking between September 2016 and September 2018.

The value of NEFT transactions increased from Rs 988,000 crore in September 2016 (just two months before demonetisation) to Rs 141,82,000 crore in September 2017, and to  Rs 180,15,000 crore in September 2018.