PROMOTION OF DIGITAL ECONOMY IN THE CAMPUS OF IMI, NEW DELHI

A write up by Anurag Ghosh on behalf of Finance Club, IMI New Delhi

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Government of India has a dream of seeing India as one of the World’s strongest economy and in this regard it has taken a lot of steps. It has taken certain noble initiative and each initiative is very much progressive and well thought of.

India is an economy of $ 2 Trillion and a GDP growth rate of 7.6%. India is growing but there are some issues that our economy faces, like our financial system is not very robust. In an era of digitalization India is still lagging; more than half the population of India, post 2014, did not have access to a basic bank account. But scenarios are changing day by day. Indian Government has taken a lot of initiative in this regard. Firstly the GOI has tried to bring all the people of India under an umbrella of basic banking by opening zero balance bank account for all. The current government is wise to understand that financial inclusion is the need of the hour for an economy to grow. If we look at any other progressive country we can see the concept of financial inclusion is very much prevalent along with cashless digital economy. But for India bringing a paradigm shift all at once is not that easy but with the noble approaches of the current government things are changing. The world is looking towards our Prime Minister in this regard. Our Prime Minister has a dream of seeing India as cashless digitalized economy and he along with his government is working on the same lines.

When the current government is progressing; how can the citizen of India lag? The responsible citizens of India have been welcoming every move of the government. It is a dream of every individual Indian to see India as a corruption free country, and the moves taken by the Indian Government to implement a cashless economy will indeed wipe out corruption and boost our economy too.

International Management Institute, New Delhi is also a partner of the Government of India in this endeavor. The institute feels itself very much privileged to be a part of this mission. Every single student in this college is very much progressive and eager to contribute in any sense to this venture. The institute’s faculty and students have welcomed every step in this regard and have kept an eye to every step from a long time. But on the eve of 8th November 2016, with the news of demonetization of the higher currency notes by the Indian Government, it was very much welcomed by every stakeholder of this institute. The thinking of Indian Government and this institute is same as this is considerably a bold and progressive step taken by any Indian Prime Minister till date. Not only this, but it is also a step further toward promoting digital economy which is the need of the hour.

In this regard, the students of our institute have tried to promote the concept of digital economy in the campus as well as outside the campus, and tried to make people aware about the same.

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PROMOTION OF DIGITAL ECONOMY BY INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, NEW DELHI

The Institute welcomes every steps of Indian Government to promote digital economy. We started our venture by trying to have a glance about what the actual scenario was post demonetization, what is the students’ take in regard to this, and how much our own campus is moving toward digital economy.

The institute has a legacy of bright and progressive students. We found out that our students are supporting the steps taken by the Indian Government and they have aligned themselves accordingly. Pre demonetization also our students have always tried to use technology at their level best. The students are very tech savvy and post demonetization they have fully moved to the usage of E-Wallets, Debit Cards, and Credit Cards etc. In other words, they have adopted payment through cashless transactions. On the awareness survey, we found out that the students of our institute have bank accounts and perform daily transactions using Net Banking, Mobile Banking and SMS Banking. They use the financial apps launched by the Indian Government like BHIM, UPI etc. Even the transactions between students are done over a mobile wallet or bank account. The Institute takes pride in reporting the same.

In our campus, the area where maximum transactions take place is our college canteen. A small group of students of Finance Club of our college interviewed the canteen owner. The canteen owner is very much aware about every step related to this digital economy. The canteen owner too possesses a progressive thinking and wants to be a part of this movement in any way possible. According to the owner he is in talks with E-Wallet companies to open a merchant account so that he can take payment for food items via mobile wallet on a large scale and for the time being he is using the UPI app and BHIM app. Apart from this he is taking payment in e-wallets for small transactions. The canteen is very much proponent of the same ideology. On further discussion, we found out that the canteen owner employs almost 30-35 people in the college canteen. The was not affected much by the demonetization as all the transactions are made through bank account using net banking. Every canteen employee possesses a bank account. The supplier and dealer that the canteen deals with have a bank account, so the canteen owner does not face any problem related to cash crunch. The canteen is considering further to go more digital with time, as he feels this would diversify his business too and ease out many things.

So while doing a survey of our own college campus, we can say that all the stakeholders of this institute are aware of the same and trying to gauge in. Our institute can be called as an institute where every financial transaction is cashless.

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OUR STUDENTS WITH THE CANTEEN OWNER; AFTER A SESSION OF AWARENESS ON DIGITAL ECONOMY

WIDE USAGE OF MOBILE WALLETS IN CANTEEN

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PROMOTION OF DIGITAL ECONOMY BY INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, NEW DELHI IN THE NEARBY MARKETS AND SPREADING AWARENESS ABOUT THE SAME

International Management Institute, New Delhi is situated in a very strategically good location there are various markets encircling the college. The markets have got shops of varied ranges from small scale food vendors to large scale fine dining restaurants. The students of our institute tried to tap into this markets; firstly do a market survey to know about the awareness of the people about the Indian Government approaches with regard to promote digital economy and cashless transactions, secondly after knowing the ground reality working on the same to spread awareness and lastly convince them to be a part of this movement.

Accordingly the students of our college under the supervision of the members of the Finance Club got divided into small groups and tapped nearby markets. The markets those were tapped were mainly the Ber Sarai Market,Katwaria Sarai Market,SDA Market and the nearby small food vendors around the college.

An overall survey of every market was done in an organized manner the shop vendors did respond to our queries. During our survey we found out that the shop vendors also welcome this step by Indian Government towards digital economy. From a very basic food-stall owner to a large restaurant owner they are very much aware about the latest happenings. While talking to them we found out that on the eve of 8th November people were a little bit skeptic about the decisions taken but as a responsible Indian citizen every person has taken it in a positive sense. It would be very unfair to say that they did not face any difficulty but they overcame it. In a city like Delhi we found out every shop vendor irrespective of how small they are they have their own bank account. Yes all the people do not have access to smart phone or an internet as it is not a day’s transition but yes people are slowly moving towards it. We being a responsible institute tried to make them more and more aware about the same. We targeted the shops which are still untapped like whose owner does not have a bank account or an E-wallet despite of having a smart phone and internet connection. Our main focus was to make those people aware of the initiatives taken by Indian Government who are still unaware; at the same time try to convince them to switch to modern means of economy. We found out that many of the small shop vendors accepted payments through E-wallet to avoid the problem of cash while some did not had that privilege this was basically due to lack of awareness. At the same time they were a little bit skeptic so what we thought was to make them aware of what digital economy is really like and how it will leverage them, how it can be profitable for their business in the long run. Every query of the shop vendors was entertained; one or two workshops were also conducted in this regard. The students of our institute gave some live demo about the working of digital E- wallet and how having a bank account will benefit them. The vendors were very much interested and our students tried to bridge the gap. No stones were left unturned we made them aware of the government of India launched app like BHIM and UPI also , some small shop vendors thought that opening a bank account is an herculean task we tried to make them aware of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.

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Finally we were successful many of the small shop vendors at our note approached their nearest bank in order to open a bank account and those who had bank account were convinced to move towards digital economy many small vendors started accepting payments through E-wallets.

OUR STUDENTS AT THE LOCAL SMALL VENDORS SHOP SPREADING THE AWARENESS

Now if we look towards the big or the medium scale vendors in the local markets almost every vendor is aware of the concept of digital economy. They have anyhow or the other implemented any sort of E-wallet and tried to move towards digital economy. According to a shop owner of a very big restaurant he is taking the full advantage of technology this has indeed helped him to diversify his business. When the event of demonetization happened then also it very rarely affected his sales and he is perfectly ok with every step taken by the Indian Governement and he is willing to take more and more advantage in this regard as he is very much aware that transformation towards digital economy is the need of the hour. On further survey we found out some of the shop owners were using only private E-wallets and they were not that much aware of the government wallets we made them aware of the same and many of them switched towards the government wallets too like UPI and BHIM.

A GLIMPSE OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DIGITAL ECONOMY IN BIG SHOPS IN THE LOCAL MARKET

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CONCLUSION

The Institute feels itself privileged that Ministry of Human Resource and Development considered us as their partner to spread awareness about the digital economy. We as an institute would like to express our gratitude in this regard and would look forward to be a part of such venture again in the near future. In this assignement we tried our level best to preach about every initiative taken by Government of India in this regard and we tried to contribute the level best from our side. We as an institute feel that every individual has got their responsibility towards this noble initiative and should strive for the betterment of India that is why we tried to engage as many students as possible from our institute. Many of the vendors were made aware and many of them shifted towards digital economy and cashless transactions. The ground results are also good; many of the people are benefited directly or indirectly and this value chain will grow with the increasing awareness.

----------- Thank You ---------

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