NPCI is planning to launch a mega campaign across the country to educate masses on how to go cashless by using mobiles and RuPay-enabled Jan Dhan debit cards for day-to-day transactions.

The exercise is part of the digital drive of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is at the forefront of the campaign to make India less dependent on cash.

The intent is to make digital money popular and be less dependent on cash, A P Hota, managing director and chief executive officer of NPCI, said.

During demonetisation period, debit card usage jumped by almost six times and e-commerce platforms witnessed five times more transactions, Hota said.

“After February, we saw the number going down from January level but it has again started picking up. I believe May would be pretty much better and come back to January level and from June onwards it will be much higher,” he added.

“The optimism is on account of the fact that we will be shortly starting a big publicity campaign in the country on use of RuPay (debit) card as well as the BHIM app as also the Aadhaar Pay,” Hota said during an interaction.

It is to publicise different digital products and to educate the masses, he added.

Hota said NPCI so far has issued close to 37 crore RuPay debit cards, of which about 25 crore are Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan (PMJDY) cards.

“A many as 12 crore cards are mainstream cards and the usage has been growing. The point of sale (PoS) terminals have now expanded to 3 million due to government’s special push from a mere 1.5 million earlier.

“On Bharat QR code acceptance infrastructure, I believe another 1 million PoS terminals would be added during next six months,” he said.

During demonetisation phase, what customers used to do because of unavailability of cash, they will now do it out of choice, he said, adding it is better to use the digital platform.

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