People still prefer cash over card: govt data

Even after a two-fold increase in expenditure on Digital India in this year, cash is still the king at the marketplace.

According to Centre's statistics laid down in parliament on Thursday, the number of electronic transactions conducted in India in 2018 was a meagre 615 crore, of which the maximum number of 148 crore came from Andhra Pradesh followed by a three-year-old state Telangana which conducted 133 crore digital transactions.

Karnataka trailed at only 12 crore e-transactions in a full year which was lesser than a much smaller state Kerala (50 crore).

However, year-on-year growth in e-transactions across the country was a handsome 45% in 2018, the data laid on the table of Lok Sabha said.

The Centre had doubled the allocations on digital India programme in this year's Budget to Rs 3,073 crore.

One of the best performing metro economies in the world, New Delhi, had only 5.96 crore e-transactions done in 2018, which was less than that of 2017.

Less developed Bihar recorded a 100% growth in e-transactions in 2018 over the previous year while prosperous Gujarat, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh showed a lower number of transactions in the current year compared with the previous year.

Punjab showed a meagre increase in digital transactions year-on-year while the growth in that of Tamil Nadu was almost muted.

A new southern state, Telangana, which was created only three years ago in 2015, registered an almost three fold increase in e-transactions in 2018 from 45 crore to 133 crore. Growth in digital transactions in Andhra Pardesh was more than two-fold since the past one year, the data showed.

In West Bengal, people reverted to the traditional mode of transaction, that is cash, as the numbers showed a decline year-on-year.