Despite the HRD ministry’s proactive involvement, digital payments at educational institutions failed to gather steam as per a recent report for the year 2016-17. Higher education institutions were asked to go cashless, however the report submitted by Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) shows that digital transactions as well as volunteership did not take place as expected.
Inadequate technology reach
According to sources, the Ministry was looking at a figure of around 25 lakh volunteers for a programme it had started for educating people on modes of e-payments in various educational institutions. The programme ended on February 12, 2017, with just 3.7 lakh volunteers. Out of the 38,000 campuses targeted under the scheme, barely 2,200 have managed to go completely cashless till date. The initiative attracted only a handful of elite institutions, though students from lesser-known institutions participated in large numbers. The main difficulty expressed by the various educational institutions at going completely cashless was the poor availability and reach of technology.
An Ambitious Target?
The road ahead for the promotion of digital transactions looks tough with the Prime Minister actively seeking details from various ministries. Back in December last year at the launch of the Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA) volunteership program, the HRD Ministry added: “Our target with the scheme is to reach out to 800 universities and 160 central institutions, the 46,000 colleges and over 3 crore students enrolled with these institutions.” Through VISAKA, the ministry sought to seek the students help at promoting digital methods such as mobile wallets (PayTm etc), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and others. The volunteering students were supposed to educate people on making electronic transactions, starting with their local campus vendors and peer groups. Departments and various bodies associated with the ministry such as NCERT and CBSE were also asked to promote, facilitate cashless payments.
