An Introduction to Cashless India
A cashless India is the first step towards making the dream of digital India a reality. In this cashless India essay, we will be talking about the meaning of ‘cashless’, the different alternatives for our monetary system, and the disadvantages and advantages of a country going fully cashless and digital in its economy. The following cashless India essay in English is for students studying in class 5 and above. The language here has been kept simple for a better understanding of young students. This essay on the cashless economy in India would enable young students to write an essay on the cashless economy in India on their own.
As we know that cashless India is the new India and with the decision made by our honourable prime minister to demonetize money used previously, this concept of going cashless has become very popular. Although there are some disadvantages of going cashless, along with that there are more benefits as well. In this essay, you will know about everything that will help you to get better information about the concept of India going cashless.
Essay on Cashless India
On the evening of November 8, 2016, at 8 P.M., Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India announced the demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupees notes in India. That historic decision had many reasons. One of the reasons was laying the stepping stone towards the dream of a cashless India.
The traditional form of monetary transactions happens with the exchange of physical hard cash between people. Cashless India is going to make it almost redundant. This idea has got a huge amount of push due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, given the concerns with the exchange of physical cash. There are a lot of advantages to going cashless. Remember that everything has a positive as well as a negative aspect. It is not that there won't be any disadvantages of going cashless but the thing is that you tend to find the ways by which you can prevent these disadvantages from harming you. All that you need to do is be more careful. As we all know, prevention is always better than cure.
First of all, let’s understand the meaning of a cashless economy. A cashless economy is one in which the liquid transactions through the system happen with the exchange of plastic currency or through digital currency. ATM debit and credit cards are plastic currency and online payments come under digital currency. The advent of blockchain technology has redefined the meaning of a cashless economy through bitcoins. A decentralized system of finance is defined by the concept of bitcoins, but we are not focusing on that in this particular essay on cashless India. We are more focused to discuss why India needs to go cashless and what are the benefits that will come with India taking on this new change. This essay provides you with information on the advantages and disadvantages of the digital payment system also. It is not that you are not going to face any problem in online transactions, you must have heard that a coin has two sides and just like that, this topic of cashless India also has both pros and cons. Let’s move on to the pros and cons of a digital payment system.
We can see the Three Main Advantages of Cashless India.
Reduction of Black Money
Black money is the money that is earned but not accounted for in taxes. That money is hidden by people from paying taxes. This black money is an illegal instrument in an economy that is capable of reducing a government down to bankruptcy. The cashless economy will ensure there’s no black money since unlike hard cash digital money cannot be hidden. At least there is no way yet that could make the hiding possible. Digital money enables governments to track all transactions in an economy that helps keep the income authentic and transparent. The technology behind the digital economy has to be well updated and sturdy though.
Transparency
India has corruption inbred in its system starting from the ministerial level to the watchman level. And it exists due to the lack of transparency in our monetary system. In an economy that is as big as India, transparency is a huge issue. We have learned of scandals like the CWG or 2g scams or the Rafale Jet scams over the years, and these scams are a result of the lack of transparency in transactions. It’s a shame that a small cashless economy in India essay would never do justice to the topic since it will never be enough to write about all of the corruption scandals India has had since its independence. Corruptions of this scale could be brought down to a large extent if we could achieve that dream of a cashless economy throughout. And it's possible because the origin and endpoint of a transaction could easily be tracked in a cashless economy and that’s the biggest advantage.
There are Two Major Disadvantages of Cashless India.
Online Theft
With the improving technology every day, there’s a rampant increase in online cheating and fraud episodes. If the government is unable to achieve sturdy and not-possible-to-hack digital systems, in a country like India with a 135 crore population, it is completely impossible to make the economy cashless. People are still afraid of making big transactions online after watching the reports of online thefts on national news channels.
Infrastructure, or the Lack of it
Not just the government infrastructure, it requires infrastructure on an individual level too. A gadget or a smartphone, data connectivity, and electricity for charging the phones regularly are the basic requirements for making online transactions possible. These are privileges that exist mostly in urban India and most of rural India is still deprived of these privileges. The government should first fix this before even dreaming of making a cashless India possible.
The Government of India took the whole country by storm by announcing the demonetization on 8th November 2016. 500- and 1000-rupees notes were no longer legal tender. This move was aimed at getting rid of the black money in the economy that was largely used to fund criminals and terrorists and formed a parallel economy. The acute shortage of cash led to long queues outside ATMs and banks trying to withdraw cash or exchange notes. This was all to initiate the fruition of a dream of cashless India.
With the enormous amount of technological revolutions happening, it is close to impossible to find people without a smartphone in these times. Almost every citizen possesses a smartphone. The ease of transaction through interfaces like GooglePay or PhonePe or Paytm has never been more seamless than this. The Indian government has also introduced interfaces like UPI or Unified Payments Interface for hassle-free digital transactions that are fully cashless.
Conclusion
In recent years, we have been asked to be in very less contact with each other. This is because of the communicable diseases of Covid-19 that have seen an adverse effect throughout India. For this reason, online payments have recently been the most popular means of transaction. The money will directly get transferred to the account of the user from our account; all you need to do is just download the app that you can use for the transaction.
In the end, the demonetization step became crucial to start a cashless economy in the country. It has paved the way towards an economy in India that is defined by greater transparency and convenience and ease in monetary transactions.
FAQs on Cashless India Essay
1. Which Country is fully cashless?
There are a lot of benefits of going cashless and most of the benefits are discussed over here. Now the world is more focused on how to go cashless as they are well aware of the advantages that they will have after going cashless. This is the reason that most of the countries are seeking some changes and making constant efforts to make their country cashless. Going cashless will improve technologies and will also increase your economy. That is also one of the main reasons why this world is more focused on going cashless. Sweden could achieve a near cashless economy in the world.
2. Name the different Digital Currencies in the world?
Just as in terms of cash, we have rupees or dollars or pounds and so on. In the same way, it is not like only one kind of digital currency is used throughout the whole world. There are different kinds of currencies that the world uses for online transactions. Litecoin, Bitcoin, Ethereum are some of them that were found to be in existence as of 2020. You need to have good knowledge about these currencies and then you can easily transfer the money.
3. What are the apps that you can use to transfer money directly into another person's account in India?
In India going cashless is the new normal. People are using online money apps such as Google pay, Paytm, Payz app, PhonePe to make the transactions directly through their phone and bank account but when we talk about the currencies being used currently, Indians are more preferably using bitcoins as their online currency. India is now making efforts to go cashless and increase its economy.
4. How much is India cashless now?
In recent years, at the time of Corona, it was advised to people not to make contact with each other. It was at that time that the cashless India concept was created and the apps like Google Pay etc came into existence. The app was introduced in India before it came into use. In the covid time, most people used the cashless way of payment. The census has proved that 37% of India has not paid using cash since the Corona times.
5. Is it possible to have cashless India anytime sooner?
Given the regency usage and increased usage of the apps such as Google pay and Paytm and the increase in the number of vendors who have accepted this method of online payment, the more India can be cashless. The most difficult thing will be to make the people of India agree to use these online methods of payment and move toward increasing the other economy of India. India too can be cashless; it is just that we need to create awareness among people regarding this.