Indian authorities issue draft to pass incentives for electronic payments

The proposal would be presented before the Union Cabinet after finance ministry incorporates comments and suggestions made by various ministries and departments on the draft that contains as many as 30 measures to encourage the e-payments, hindustantimes.com reports.

The note has already incorporated the public feedback on a draft proposal for facilitating electronic transactions, which was put up in the public domain in June and suggestions were invited through the governments MyGov.in platform.

The draft, made up of 30 points, refer to, among others, the removal of different kind of fees and charges on e-transactions and provision of  incentive for such payment. It is proposed to provide income tax benefits to people who pay a portion of their expenditure either through debit or credit cards and do away with transaction charges for purchase petrol, gas and rail tickets.

As per the proposal, all high value transactions exceeding Rs one lakh will have to be made through electronic mode and the utility service providers would be encouraged to give incentives for card payments. Incentives would also be given to shopkeepers accepting major portion of their payments through plastic money.

The proposal follows a recent  announcement made by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech, wherein he had said that one way to curb the flow of black money was to discourage transactions in cash. The finance ministry had put up for public comments the draft proposals for facilitating electronic transactions in June, 2015. As per the draft proposal, merchants could get a tax benefit for accepting 50% of payment in electronic mode.