Subsequent to the demonetization exercise which got kicked off by the Government on 08th November’2016, the entire focus of Government machinery has shifted towards making India a cashless economy. The word “Cashless economy” sounds great in itself but its going to be a tight ropewalk for the Government to make India a true Cashless nation.
There is no doubt to the fact that digitisation has forced many sections of the society to do their monetary transactions through either the online wallet companies like – Paytm, Freecharge, Mobikwik etc. or online transfer. Inspite of being reluctant in the initial phase, the same has started slowly gaining acceptance among even the lower strata of society wherein Vegetable vendors, Milk man & even the housemaids have started accepting payments through online wallets. The business of online wallet companies is witnessing a quantum jump with Paytm leading the fray.
However, the big question that remains unanswered is whether the movement towards digitization has been abruptly forced upon the Consumers or there is a genuine interest towards the same. With 70% of the Population still living in rural belts and struggling to fulfill their basic necessity, the prudence of forcing consumers to abruptly adopt online transactions would be tested with time. Demonetisation was genuinely a good initiative to weed out black money from the economy. However, it has lost theme in between and the focus has now shifted towards digitization mid-way.
