New Delhi: Signalling the government's big digital push at the completion of one month of demonetisation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday announced discounts on online payments for fuel, rail tickets and insurance.
"Insurance policies taken from public insurance companies using online payment will get 10% discount on general insurance and 8% discount on life insurance," said Jaitley.
He said these discounts will also be available on digital payments made on rail networks.
Emphasising the importance of alternate modes of transaction, Arun Jaitley said: “The government is aiming to push and implement the use of credit cards, debit cards, mobile wallets, and online banking.”
Jaitley said that within a month of demonetisation, digital payment mode has doubled to 40 percent.
"Monthly and seasonal tickets bought by digital payment on Suburban railway network will get 0.5% discount. This will start from 1st Jan, 2017. Will start with Mumbai suburban railways," said Jaitley.
Measures announced by Finance Minister @ArunJaitely to encourage digital payments. #GoCashlessGoDigital pic.twitter.com/NRmoGxbgu7— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) December 8, 2016
Jaitley said that public dealings with government departments and PSUs through digital mode will be free of transaction fee and MDR charges. Also credit/debit card transactions up to Rs 2,000 will be exempt from service tax.
The minister further said 10 per cent discount will be available on use of digital mode for paying for RFID or fast-tags for highway toll.
Reflecting on the cost that excessive use of cash entails, Arun Jaitley said: “Dealing with cash has economic as well as in-built cost in a democratic set-up.”
Finance Minister also revealed a number of measures to facilitate digital payments in rural India and said: “The government will provide two Point of sale machines for free to each village that has a population of over 10,000 and 1,00,000 such villages will be selected,” he said.
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