States Working On Comprehensive And Integrated Digital Payment Framework

THE DIGITAL PAYMENT platform will be an aggregator-like, one stop shop for all the payment options available for use, for G2G and G2C services.

- Abhishek Raval

According to a recentVisa report,‘Accelerating TheGrowth of Digital Payments in India, A FiveYear Outlook', India’s net cost of cash is 1.7 per cent of GDP. Due to the burden of cash on the economy, efforts have been made since the last few decades, by multiple governments to encourage the uptake of digital payments in India. Then came the mother of all: demonetisation. It gave an unprecedented push for the adoption of digital payments in India. The central government and state governments have been taking multiple steps, under the Digital India mission to shift towards digital modes of payments.

States setting up all-in-one payment ecosystem Rajasthan Payments Platform (RPP)

The approach overall has been to come up with a comprehensive platform for the citizens to make the payments wherever they are and with whatever means they can pay, e.g. DoIT&C, Rajasthan has designed a uniform payment gateway service - Rajasthan Payment Platform (RPP) that integrates banks, mobile wallets, credit cards and debit cards for seamless electronic and mobile payments. RPP will allow government departments and organisations, in Rajasthan, for two-way electronic payments. Citizens can make payments - taxes, utility bills, fees, etc., to the respective departments with ease. In the same way, departments can release funds to beneficiaries, vendors and others.

Hitherto, departments used different payment gateways to facilitate the citizens in availing services of their respective departments. For this, departments have to undergo the extensive process of signing agreements with various banks/payment gateways followed by technical integrations.