Black money can be dealt with by creating a cashless economy, says the Indian government

In order to zip up the flow of black money, the Indian government is now looking at ways of promoting cashless economy, which would include creating an ecosystem to incentivise cashless transactions. "We are holding consultations with all stakeholders, including the Reserve Bank of India," said a finance ministry official on the condition of anonymity.

Not only this, a task force has been set up under the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) secretary Neeraj Kumar Gupta, which has suggested measures for promoting cashless transactions and has advised both banks and National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) to focus on creating an ecosystem that would promote and incentivise cashless transactions.

These measures include encouraging installation of point of sale (POS) machines by rationalising merchant discount rate (MDR), while also allowing first five inter-bank transactions free of cost so that people opt for online money transfer.

Other than this, more ATM installations was also a part of the suggestions, so that more people start using plastic money.

"We have the Jan Dhan platform under which RuPay cards have been issued. Now we have to ensure that infrastructure platforms like ATMs, POS machines are available so that there is ease to withdraw as well," the official said.

Yesterday, we had reported about the finance ministry stating the amount of black money unearthed in the past two years. It also talked about the steps taken by the government for curbing black money, a new Black Money Act, and new income disclosure schemes.

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