Nandan Nilekani is going to make sure more Indians, local villages adopt digital payments as Modi turns to him for help

In a bid to ease the cash crunch situation and make sure digital payment modes enter rural areas of India as well, PM Narendra Modi has roped in Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani to tackle the chaos.

Nilekani will be heading a 13-member committee that will chalk out a plan on how to make digital payment accessible in rural areas and how to get point-of-sale machines in villages. PM Modi has vouched for cashless economy, and has been harping on digitized payments since he announced demonetization. Demonetisation wiped out 86% of the currency in circulation overnight, resulting in long queues outside banks and ATMs.

Meanwhile, speaking at Carneige Global Technology Summit 2016, Nilekani said bulk of merchant payments should turn cashless, which could result in getting the country's economy on right track.

"Bulk of India's transactions are merchant payments and that has to become cashless and that cannot be done in a historical system because the card system is designed for top-end users," he said while addressing the gathering on "Road to Cashless Economy: How Government, Regulation, Technology and Markets Come Together".

Nilekani said cashless merchant payments is not the only way of solving the cash problem, but also is the way of reigniting the economic growth by removing frictions in the path of purchasing decisions.

Earlier in his speech, he said deployment of financial digital technology will be enforced rapidly because of the political will to have a plan on cash business in right place.

Availability of infrastructure - smart phones, payment technologies, wallets, Unified Payment Interface etc - is another reason for rapid deployment of financial digital technology, Nilekani said.

"The country is going to see some exciting times ahead if the infrastructure like smart phones, payment technologies, wallets, Unified Payment Interface etc, fall together in right place," he said.