Govt. to launch UPI enabled Aadhaar-linked e-payments app soon

Making way for the digital India dream, the central government will soon launch a mobile application to facilitate Aadhaar-linked digital payments.

The Government will reportedly roll out a nation-wide programme to train over 1 crore people on e-payments.

Talking about the initiative, Union IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “We are going to promote Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AEPS) in coordination with Finance Ministry. About 40 crore bank accounts have been linked to Aadhaar.”

The Government, the minister said, is working on a plan to connect rest of the accounts with Aadhaar numbers.

He said that there are biometric devices which can be connected to smartphones and convert a smartphone into a Point of Sale (PoS) machine.

Speaking on the technical aspects, Common Service Centre (CSC)-SPV CEO Dinesh Tyagi said: “We are developing a UPI-enabled mobile application. It will be available in two to four days.”

“Customer feed Aadhaar number, scan finger on the biometric, approve the amount to be paid on the application and the payment will be transferred from his account to merchant’s account.”

For using the service, the customer will not need to share bank account details as the application will detect the bank account linked to the Aadhaar number with help of Unified Payment Interface (UPI).

He said that Common Service Centers across country are already carrying out AEPS transactions and the Government is converting same process in to a mobile app.

As per the official announcement, that government will conduct workshops to train 14 lakh Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLE) across 500 districts and 6,500 blocks about carrying out digital transactions which will be attended by parliamentarians as well.

Each VLE will train 40 individuals covering 80 lakh individuals and at least 10 shopkeepers with a target to cover 25 merchants across the country.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, he said, will organise a two-day event at Major Dhyanchand National Stadium in Delhi to create awareness about digital payments and also help people open bank accounts and enroll for Aadhaar.

The minister said even migrant labourers having Aadhaar will be provided help to open their bank accounts.

“27 banks will have their stalls at the venue. Private mobile wallet companies will also be there to help people in making digital payments,” Prasad added.