'e-RUPI may completely negate pilferage'

The launch of e-RUPI, a person- and purpose-specific digital payment solution, by the government is expected to completely negate any pilferage and will ensure full benefit to intended beneficiaries, India Inc said on Monday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched e-RUPI, which is aimed at improving transparency and targeted delivery of benefits.

PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Sanjay Aggarwal said that the move is a significant step to enhance the digitisation process of the country.

"Going ahead, e-RUPI will help enhance the percolation of various schemes of the government at the ground level.

"It will speed up as well as ease the process of social welfare schemes and also help increase the private sector's efficiency in corporate social responsibility activities," Aggarwal said.

Sharing similar views, CII president T V Narendran said that through this payment mechanism, the government can extend monetary support to citizens without involvement of intermediaries.

The voucher system will enable all beneficiaries, including feature phone-users, to benefit through this mechanism and it will also be an excellent tool for the corporates, through which they can extend employee and community welfare schemes, he said.

Sanjiv Bajaj, president-designate, CII, said, "This is expected to completely negate any pilferage and will ensure 100 per cent benefit to the intended beneficiaries.

"This mechanism is expected to make DBT (direct benefit transfer) more efficient and has all the ingredients to ensure the spread of financial inclusion by the government but also by corporates to extend employee and community welfare schemes.”

Chandrajit Banerjee, director general, CII, said that the launch of e-RUPI will ensure that benefits reach the intended beneficiaries.

Ficci said that with this launch, the government will now be able to connect sponsors of the services with the beneficiaries and service providers in a digital manner and without any physical interface.

“The e-RUPI system will not only ensure that there are no leakages in the delivery of government services but also offer a much-needed ease and convenience to the people who are the recipient of such services," it added.

Spice Money founder Dilip Modi said the launch of e-RUPI will bring technology into the hands of billions, specially at the last mile.

"There have been many conversations around ensuring leak-proof welfare to beneficiaries by leveraging new-age tech, however, the launch of e-RUPI today makes India a global pioneer in the digital payments ecosystem.

"With the pandemic, the growth of the fintech sector, particularly digital payments, has been at rocket-speed," he said.

Mumbai-based fintech company Infrasoft Technologies also welcomed the move.

"The system will now allow the Indian government to implement their welfare policies at speed and scale eliminating the multiple tedious processes beneficiaries went through to get funds previously.

"e-RUPI would also promote financial inclusion by enabling the underbanked population to receive the benefits and funds of welfare schemes and play a crucial role in bolstering the economy of the country from the ground up," Infrasoft Technologies MD and CEO Rajesh Mirjankar said.

InfrasoftTech provides the e-RUPI technology stack to banks by helping them in implementing the technology - right from integration with the existing systems to deployment as per their target beneficiaries.

Currently, it is working with two of the 11 live banks as per NPCI.

It is shortly adding more client banks with the e-RUPI features, it said.

Anand Kumar Bajaj, founder and CEO of PayNearby, said this is the next best step to take high-end tech to the bottom of the pyramid.

"Targeted, transparent and leakage-free delivery to the end point is the intention of policy makers and we are happy that PayNearby will be able to enable this objective," he added.

Photograph: Courtesy PIB