As the 50-day window to deposit old 500 and 1000-rupee notes draws to a close on Dec 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘BHIM: Bharat Interface for Money’, a realtime cashless transaction scheme at the DigiDhan Mela on December 30.
“This new mobile payment app ‘BHIM: Bharat Interface for Money’ was named in the honour of Bhimrao Ambedkar, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar — the man who gave us our constitution” said PM Modi.
Shortly after his Nov 8 shock announcement, PM Modi had sought 50 days to clean the economy and curb black money, corruption and terrorism, and slowly pushed the country towards digital payments. PM Modi awarded winners of the first draw of the Lucky Grahak Yojana and DigiDhan Vyapar Yojana.
“That day not far when every transaction will be made digitally, and this name of Babasaheb Ambedkar will be through every segment of our economy in the future. This app can be used on any smartphone, even a Rs 1,000-1,200 feature phone, even without the internet” added PM Modi
“Pledge to make at least five transactions in the new year to enable India move towards digital economy”, Modi urges as he ended his address.
The event was followed by press conferences of senior Congress leader P Chidambaram and later by Union finance Minister Arun Jaitley, speaking on the major currency switch campaign.
Source: Hindustan Times
