Digital Villages Programme [UPSC Notes]

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched a programme to adopt 75 villages and convert them into ‘digital payment enabled’ villages. Know more about this ‘Digital Villages Programme’ for the IAS exam Indian Economy segment.

Digital Villages Programme

The programme has been launched as the ‘Har Payment Digital’ mission amid the ‘Digital Payments Awareness Week (DPAW) 2023’ by the RBI.

• To initiate the 75 Digital Villages programme through the adoption of 75 villages there will also be the involvement of village-level entrepreneurs.
• Under the initiative, payment system operators (PSOs) will adopt these villages across the country and conduct two camps in each of these villages with an aim to improve awareness and onboard merchants for digital payments.
• RBI has taken four major policy initiatives: 
  • Storage of Payment System Data.
  • Rationalization of Merchant Discount Rate.
  • Master Directions on Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs). 
  • National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system – Settlement at half-hourly intervals. 

Digital India Initiatives: The Government has taken up many initiatives under the Digital India campaign. Discussed below are a few such important initiatives:

• BHIM – Bharat Interface for Money is an app that makes payment transactions simple, easy and quick using Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
• E-Pathshala – Developed by NCERT, e-Pathshala showcases and disseminates all educational e-resources including textbooks, audio, video, periodicals and a variety of other print and non-print materials through the website and mobile app.
• E-Hospitals – It is a Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) which is a one-stop solution for connecting patients, hospitals and doctors through a single digital platform. Till February 2021, as many as 420 e-Hospitals had been established under the Digital India campaign.
• DigiLockers – This flagship initiative aims at the ‘Digital Empowerment’ of the citizen by providing access to authentic digital documents to the citizen’s digital document wallet.

Digital Villages Programme:- Download PDF Here