The cashless dictum and the mobile payments drive is reaching alarming proportions with news coming out that the government may think of withdrawing cheque facility of bank customers to push them towards mobile payments.
All this is tantamount to financial terrorism by the government on the hapless citizens. The government in all this is going one step too far in its zeal to move towards a cashless society. Apart from the urban – rural divide which may make people not very comfortable in moving towards mobile payments, there is a discomfort in dealing with the payment process and also issues relating to network connectivity across the country. The basic reason is that in the payment process there is no reassuring and strong confirmation that the payment has gone through and received at the other end. There is always a level of uncertainty and a feeling that the receiver may come back at a later point in time claiming that the payment was not received. For people who have been used to a record through receipts of payments made which are enforceable in any forums, it is just not enough to get a cryptic ‘payment made’ message on your mobile or internet device. These could be early fears since the cashless payment mode is new and over time with lesser problems seen and reassured with the fidelity of the payment process there could be greater acceptance. But for this the government needs to have patience and give people time and not try as is now to force cashless operations down the gullet of its citizens.
The other issue related to this is that in more and more interactions of the citizens with agencies both government as well as private mobile numbers are being asked for.
This is being done without understanding that certain people may have problems with cellular phones both conceptually as well as in the usage methodology of these devices apart from reasons related to physical issues like hearing impairment etc. Some categories of our people – be it because of age, lack of education or those that are physically or mentally challenged tend to get flustered and nervous when while using the mobile something goes amiss with the call and they are not able to recover the call or transaction. This leads to anxiety and distress. There is no consideration being given to such cases and those without mobiles are being considered today as pariahs and deprived of certain services and facilities.
This in a sense is isolating a part of our society from mainstream activity. This isolation will be accentuated and deepened by the present zeal of the incumbent government to move to cashless society which will as time passes have a part of our population completely debarred from mainstream societal activity. This kind of polarisation of our society is actively being pursued by our government which is rather regrettable.
The way to go forward on the reduction of usage of cash in the Indian economy is to let it evolve on its own which will form a more sustaining basis that will endure rather than rash and hasty steps that will result in more disruption and chaos than smooth implementation. It is also important for our government to study how cashless economies are evolving around the world and take lessons from that rather than trying to do everything from scratch and ending up more as a bull in a china shop in its implementation process. The Scandinavian countries as reported in a leading international study considered to be leaders in cashless transactions use the debit and credit card more compared to mobile payments. Between the debit card and the credit cards, the usage of the former is three times that of the latter which indicates an evolution or trend considering that the credit card came earlier to the debit card. Surprisingly countries in Africa like Kenya and Ghana lead the pack in the highest mobile payments.
Thus India’s place in terms of a cashless economy could be somewhere between Europe and Africa but that position has to be carved out from solid acceptance by our citizens. No amount of tom-toming figures of higher cashless transactions and threats of withdrawing ATM’s and chequebooks will get the government anywhere since only time can give a solution.
