Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announces measures to promote digital transactions, says buying petrol, insurance will be cheaper; waves service tax
Arun Jaitley at a press conference at New Delhi yesterday. Pic/PTI
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New Delhi: In bid to promote a cashless economy, the government yesterday announced discounts on an array of services from buying petrol to insurance, and railway tickets through the digital mode and waived service tax on card transactions of up to Rs 2,000.
The cost of these discounts, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "will be borne by each of the organisation because most of these discounts are offered by the bodies which are run by central government or are PSU units."
The move follows a month after government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes to check black money, leading to a severe cash crunch in the system.
"As of November 8, excessive amount of cash and a very very limited amount of digital transaction. There is a cost of transacting in cash and that cost of transacting in cash has to be borne by the economy, it is also be to borne by the political system. These are costs which are visible, there are cost which are invisible. Excessive cash can also lead a lot of malpractices and therefore in the long run we are using this also as an opportunity to move towards digitisation," he said.
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