NEW DELHI: Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth on Friday said digital public infrastructure (DPI) has led to savings of over $27 billion in government schemes. In the last one decade, the use of direct benefit transfer (DBT) has ensured money reached to targeted beneficiaries and bogus accounts are weeded out. This has helped in savings of taxpayers’ money, he said.
Sharing the country’s success story in financial inclusion, Seth said India has achieved 80% account opening penetration from 20% within a span of seven-eight years with DPI, which would have taken 47 years in the normal course as per a study by the Bank of International Settlements.
Out of this, 56% of bank account holders are women, and 67% of accounts are in rural and semi-urban areas, he said at a seminar titled ‘Digital Public Infrastructure- Enabler for Advancing Financial Inclusion and Productivity Gains’. “The average balance in these accounts is over `4,000. Our digital payment systems’ UPI crossed 10 billion only in the month of August alone. Today, over 5.5 crore Jan Dhan accounts are receiving direct benefit transfers,” he said.