Naidu to head Committee on digital payment systems
NEW DELHI : The Union Government has notified appointment of a 13-member Committee of Chief Ministers headed by AP Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu to `promote digital payment systems to promote transparency, financial inclusion and also prepare a road map in this regard’.
Though on the face of it the move by the Narendra Modi Government appears `technical’, it is clearly a political decision to consolidate support base among the state Chief Ministers as well as the state governments which have been representing the Prime Minister Narendra Modi ever since the ban was announced on November 8.
This move is also being seen as a political strategy by the Centre to diffuse any possible differences with the States on the demonetisation plan and the proposed GST Law.
The Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had actually spoken to Mr. Babu last week with a specific request to head the proposed Committee. According to sources the AP CM was initially not keen on the job as he has been vocal in articulating the difficulties faced by people ever since the demonitisation move.
Other Chief Ministers have voiced their issues with the centre. For instance Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, whose state is dire straits following the recent decision of the Narendra Modi government to ban Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes, was the first CM to fly down especially to Delhi for a meeting with Prime Minister to discuss the issue.
Mr. Rao had arrived here for a special interactive session with the Prime Minister, according to the Chief Minister’s Office at the invitation of Mr. Modi, on ways and means to tackle the crisis situation in his state.
The sharp decline in revenue from liquor is evident from 50 per cent drop in sales in the retail outlets. VAT revenue declined steeply in the last 10 days. As against collection of about Rs.2,400 crore a month, so far only about Rs.200 crore was realised in more than two weeks.
The irony of it all is that of the Rs. 63000+ plus that got converted into white thanks to the recent tax amnesty scheme of the Modi Government, Telangana alone accounted for Rs. 13000 crore of the disclosure. Of this one individual is supposed to have benefited to the extent of Rs. 10000 crore.
In contrast to the cautious welcome extended by Mr. Rao on the currency ban, his counterpart in Andhra Pradesh had actually been a vocal supporter of the move by the Modi Government.
However, subsequently as things on the ground in the state did not work according to his expectations Mr. Babu deemed it necessary to seek intervention of the Prime Minister.
Apart from Mr. Naidu, others named in the Chief Minister’s Committee are Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Sikkim CM Pawan Kumar Chamling, Puducherry CM V Narayanasamy, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis are also members of the committee along with NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya, and Amitabh Kant CEO, NITI Aayog.
Nandan Nilekani, former Chairman, UIDAI, Janmejaya Sinha, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, Rajesh Jain, Managing Director, netCORE, Sharad Sharma, Co-founder, iSPIRIT and Jayant Varma, Professor (Finance), IIM (Ahmedabad) are special invitees.
The terms of reference of the committee are identifying global best practices for implementing an economy primarily based on digital payment and examine the possibility of adoption of these global standards in the Indian context.
The panel will also outline measures for rapid expansion and adoption of the system of digital payments like cards (Debit, Credit and pre-paid), Digital-wallets/ E-wallets, internet banking, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), banking apps, etc and shall broadly indicate the roadmap to be implemented in one year.
The high level group will also identify and address bottlenecks and indicate solutions pertaining to adoption of the steps required to move towards a digital payments economy.
