NITI Aayog on Thursday announces the launch of the schemes 'Lucky Grahak Yojana' and the 'Digi-Dhan Vyapari Yojana' to give cash awards to consumers and merchants who utilise digital payment instruments for personal consumption expenditures.


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The scheme will become operational with the first draw on 25th December, 2016 (as a Christmas gift to the nation) leading up to a mega draw on Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti on 14th April 2017.


It will comprise of two major components, one for the consumers and the other for the merchants:


Key Highlights of these 2 schemes


 


a) Lucky Grahak Yojana (for consumers):


i. Daily reward of Rs 1000 to be given to 15,000 lucky consumers for a period of 100 days.


ii. Weekly  prizes worth Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10,000 and Rs 5,000 for consumers who use the alternate modes of digital payments.


This will include all forms of transactions viz. UPI, USSD, AEPS and RuPay Cards but will for the time being exclude transactions through private credit cards and digital wallets.


b) Digi-Dhan Vyapari Yojana (for merchants):


i. Prizes for merchants for all digital transactions conducted at merchant establishments


ii. Weekly  prizes worth Rs 50,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 2,500


c)  Mega Draw on 14th of April – Ambedkar Jayanti


 -3 Mega prizes for consumers worth Rs 1 cr, 50 lakh, 25 lakh for digital transactions between 8th November, 2016 to 13th April, 2017 to be announced on 14th April, 2017


-3 Mega prizes for merchants worth Rs 50 lakhs, 25 lakh, 12 lakh for digital transactions between 8th November, 2016 to 13th April, 2017 to be announced on 14th


 
-To ensure that the focus of the scheme is on small transactions (entered into by common people), incentives shall be restricted to transactions within the range of Rs 50 and Rs 3000.


-All transactions between consumers and merchants; consumers and government agencies and all AEPS transactions will be considered for the incentive scheme.


-The winners shall be identified through a random draw of the eligible transaction IDs [which are generated automatically as soon as the transaction is completed] by software to be especially developed by NPCI for this purpose.  


-NPCI has been directed to ensure a technical and security audit of the same to ensure that the technical integrity of the process is maintained.


-The estimated expenditure on the first phase of the scheme (up to 14th April 2017) is likely to be 340 crores.