New Delhi, Mar 6 (KNN) Appealing the business community to turn digital transaction into a nationwide movement, Union Minister of Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice,  Ravi Shankar Prasad started a nation-wide campaign to launch the training programs.

He was speaking at the inauguration of On-boarding of self organized small and medium businesses / traders on digital payment initiatives – project entrusted to the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology on Saturday.

The objective of these training programmes is to understand and adopt simplified digital payment mechanisms like UPI, USSD, BBPS, AEPS etc. in a convenient manner, which would contribute towards establishing digital economy and convey the benefits of digital payments to traders through capacity building programs.

About 13500 small and medium unorganized / self organized businesses/ traders are targeted.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) shall be mobilizing traders and trade union leaders for training on digital payment initiatives.

Under this programme, NIELIT shall be organizing 5 Regional Workshops at Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and 30 State Workshops and 100 DigiDhan Camps, all over India.

In his address, Sanjiv Mittal, Joint Secretary, MeitY said, “With the increase in mobile penetration, citizens and traders have started switching to digital mediums for financial transactions. Mobile as a Point of Sale (PoS), Point of Purchase (PoP) and Point of Acceptance (PoA) is also lessening the digital divide between urban and rural India, along with drawing the masses into the net of financial inclusion. Post demonetization, NIELIT through its PAN India centres, accredited training partners and facilitation centres has been making appreciable efforts in promotion of digital payment initiatives. Capacity building of SMEs and traders on digital payment by NIELIT trainers is another nugget to take forward Government’s untiring efforts for creation of a digitally vibrant society, which is also in line with the ‘Digital India’ mission.”

Dr. Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Director General, NIELIT outlined the details of the programme for training of traders on digital payment initiatives.

He further said, “All NIELIT Centres have been geared up to ensure that the training targets are achieved within 2-3 months. At NIELIT, use of cash as a model for making payment to vendors/suppliers has been discontinued since 2014.

Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said, “The Digi Dhan camps shall be organized in the market itself to digitally educate the shopkeepers and merchants. CAIT has touch based with its member and market associations throughout India and the main purpose of the Regional and State Workshops would be to create momentum and vibrancy among the self-organized and informal trading community. These Regional Workshops would also serve as Master Training on Digital Payment Modes for traders, who would be involved with further proliferation and promotion of digital payment initiatives among their fellow traders.”

“Digital transaction will get a massive boast with the implementation of the GST. I appeal to the Government to provide required training on GST to the traders and merchants to make it a huge success,” added Khandelwal.

The event was attended by more than 200 traders, besides senior officials of the Government.