Massive Efforts Needed to Educate People for e-Transactions : N K Goyal

N K Goyal and S D Saxena of CMAI Association of India 
interacting with media persons 
on the issue of educating masses on e-transactions 

By Vinod Varshney

With demonetization woes continuing across the country at an unprecedented level, the ICT sector eyes an opportunity in the situation after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a dramatic fashion broadcast this decision in a message to the nation on the night of November 8 this year.

Amidst widespread criticism of the demonetization by most opposition political parties and renowned economists, any support to the move can only be a soothing balm to the government. The latest voice of support to the demonetization move comes from the CMAI Association of India, which boasts as being one of the largest ICT associations based in India with 48,500 members and 54 MoU partners worldwide, actively engaged in development and promotion for telecommunications and education sector.

N K Goyal, the president of the organisation does agree that the government move has brought enormous hardship to the people, but he believes that it would be a temporary phase and millions of people in the country who own smart phones would be transcending to making mobile payments as a natural habit. But as old habits die hard, he says that massive efforts are needed to bring about the requisite change.

He informed Thursday in a chat with media persons that the CMAI Association of India which deals with more than one lac educational institutions and academic professionals consisting of universities, technical & engineering colleges and schools, plans to initiate an online free training programmes and large scale education drive for use of e-transactions.

Goyal expressed hopes that the forthcoming budget may make big announcement to support education programmes for e-transactions to facilitate the country entering into a digital economy era.

The CMAI Association of India has suggested a number of thrust areas to make the digital economy mission of the government successful like providing volunteers to help in educating people at the grass-root levels especially in the rural areas, launching programmes involving university students and senior citizens to educate rural and low income urban population in the use of e-payments, helping small and marginal traders, especially vendors for the use of e-payment methods. Surprisingly, the Association has missed out in this list the private doctors who had been charging their fees in cash only across the country and similarly the private schools who pay their teachers in cash after getting signatures on a higher salary slip. The point was raised by a media person in the discussion with the CMAI Association president. Goyal insisted change would come in these sections of society also.

Being a player in the technology space, the CMAI Association also recommends that all available options for increasing connectivity should be explored including satellite, optical fibre and new technologies such as ‘white space’. 

Thankfully, the members of the CMAI Association do not dispute that there has been increase in frauds in e-transactions but they insist that the situation is not as alarming as has been made out in certain quarters. They ask in return whether people do never get defrauded and lose money when they make cash transactions. They insist that e-transactions despite all the risks involved offer better safety and also transparency.

SD Saxena, vice chairman of the CMAI is conscious of the importance of the safety aspect and says that at the banking level the encryption level is robust but at the end-user level, it is weak and needs to be bolstered in order to generate better confidence among people whose fear cannot be brushed aside in backdrop of the incident when the security of 40 lac debit cards got compromised a few months ago.