Digital Currency – Ultimate Idea to Stop Corruption !!!
If we travel across India, in a single day itself, we can observe multiple instances of corruption, heart-breaking poverty, beggary,employment of child labor etc. Media reports such instances throughout the day.
Poverty and malnutrition in India are still very much visible. I am not believing that all the money, which the country spend towards poverty alleviation reaches the needy. Can we say beggary is under control? Even in cities, where begging is banned,religious places, traffic joints ,wherever public presence is there, we can still find beggars. There are even allegations that beggary in India is very much organized and is a multi crore illicit business.
We have enough legislations in place to stop corruption, irradicate child labour and bonded labour. Unfortunately, we are no where near the goals of such legislations. We can find children working in restaurants, shops, construction sites, factories etc., and there are allegations of exclusive deployment of child labor in certain industrial segments.
Even though we have dedicated police force, flying squads and various Government machineries to stop corruption and illegal activites, attempts by antisocial elements are continuing.
"I just paid 50 bucks to that guy... was parking my bike under 'No Parking'", "Oh come on man, no need to wait here, just pay 300 to that guy and get the ticket. I can't come again to see this movie", "You know something, I paid 8 Lakhs for my teaching job and I am going to demand 25 Lakhs as dowry", "This is the last seat, pay 50000 donation now or wait till next year to admit your son in this school", "Hi dude this is original but we can't give you bill. if you go to that shop you need to pay 10000 for the handset", "Why you want bill for these ornaments? You can save 25000", "Good job man, you cooked up 50 Lakhs this year, will get you a surprise gift", "Paid 150K to that guy, he was sleeping on that file for 2 weeks". It is really painful to hear this from our fellow citizens, right?
For the last 50+ years, we have been constantly debating on these social issues. We have sorted out some of the reasons for corruption but still corruption can be observed across Government/Semi Government/Private offices/Public life. There are lot of discussions happening on this topic and so far many Indian or International researchers would have obtained PhD on this. But still we don't have a clear cut idea on how to stop it or how to fight against corruption. We have not reached any where near a corruption free society. Many ideal and responsible officers and politicians have been trying to control corruption but still it is a reality in India. Today, people can make money, out of the way for official favors or by doing illegal business. Accepting money towards bribe, donation towards 'back door' recruitment, dowry, tax evasions, cooking up corporate accounts etc are just few examples. This results accumulation of so much money inside and outside country and we call it as black money or unaccounted money.
If we stop couple of these social troubles, many other social issues can also be resolved. For example, if everybody starts paying tax, Government machinery would be able to spend more money towards basic education, public health and infrastructure. Similarly if there is no provision to keep money unaccounted, people shall act more diligent and the money intended to reach the needy will reach them without any fail.
Unfortunately, as of now, in our country, there are so many ways to keep money unaccounted and 100% transparent accounting is not possible. A salaried person can't evade income tax where as a street vendor making Rs.50,000 per month can evade tax. If 1000s of street vendors do this, country will loose so much money. This is not only applicable for unorganised sector, just think about any business without billing, imagine the volume of sales tax or income tax or service tax evasions.
In this context, I would like to present an idea which stops corruption and resolve plenty of other social troubles. Go for digital cash and stop printing currency
If we can stop printing currency and coins, it would be a revolutionary attempt to save our country. This can make India, free of corruption and accelerate our transition towards 'developed country' status. You might be thinking this as illogical or quite impossible. The same sort of thought process would have happened when ATMs or eBanking started by replacing traditional processes.
Today we are using debit/credit card to purchase online or offline, to transfer money etc. We are quite comfortable with that and more people are going to use this facility in the coming days. So it is achievable and the possible challenge would be to launch digital currency, country wide with special care to cater needs of rural public, illiterate people and people those who are differentially able.
To achieve corruption free India through digital cash, we may need to do all these or more
1. Make Bank Account, mandatory for all citizens
2. Stop printing cash except coins up to Rs.5 and currency up to Rs.10. Digitise existing paper currency like DEMAT in share trading
3. Ban buy/sell transactions using paper currency, permanently after giving enough time for digitisation
4. Make source of income mandatory to perform digitisation and in the absence of source, that money needs to be declared as black money
5. Issue cash cards (refillable) to all account holders with guidelines in regional language
6. Convert existing ATMs as self service kiosks [account to account or account to cash card transfers, generate statements etc].
7. Introduce more low cost self service kiosks across the country, which provides easy access to citizens
8. Make Registration/License and Bank Account with POS (point of sale) soft pay facility as mandatory to do any business/service, irrespective of scale of business.
9. Provide low cost POS (point of sale) soft pay facilities [card/cash payment] in which seller can generate a bill and customer can swipe and pay any small amount.
10. Make billing mandatory for any sale, if the value of the sale is Rs.10 or more.
11. Make source of money and purpose of purchase/sale in bill, mandatory if sale/purchase value exceeds certain amount.
12. Provide wireless POS (point of sale) soft pay facility to cabs/taxi/autorikshaw service and similar kind of services.
13. Provide ticket vending machine with POS (point of sale) soft pay facility to city/rural transport services
14. Ensure high level security to cash/credit card and online transactions. This need to be ensured with pin, biometric impressions etc. Also ensure extra security levels,transaction amount wise.
15. Provide special purpose cards with adequate security measures to old aged, illiterates and differentially abled people.
Advantages
1. If we introduce digital cash, beggary can be stopped. A person can nott open a Bank Account for 'beggary' because end of the day, account holder shall be answerable for his/her income. Also no beggar can come with a with a point of sale soft pay kiosk!
2. Once currency is digitised, robbery can be reduced to a great extent. Somebody can rob a product for their use but they can not stole and sell it and make money. One can not sell or buy anything without a Bank Account. Also remember that by digitisation of currency, RBI shall be able to know the net worth of any citizen and any transaction can be tracked.
3. Giving bribes to support corruption shall lose its charm. How do somebody receive/give bribe? No cash in suitcase or in nearby shop or relative's house or secretary's car. One can not demand money to be transferred Bank Account or pay certain bills. All transactions and bills can be monitored and recorded. However there could be a possibility of buying a product/service and gift to another person, inorder to influence the person. But there is a limit for this and the person, who has accepted the gift shall be in a very difficult position to dispose it off. Registration is mandatory to sell something and one shall be caught, if attempt to sell something without registration and license. So possibility of a legal sale is not there but somebody can go for Barter system. During an IT/ investigation raid, it will not be that much easy to give justifications and documental evidence for all those gifts accepted. Citizen's assets, digital cash, earnings etc., should be matched at any point of time and rest of the things can be declared as illegal by Government. When everything go
digital, total net worth of any citizen would be available with Government and nobody can keep crores of rupees in water tank or in caves. That game is over!
4. Child labor, Bonded labor, employing contract/badlis by showing minimum wage only in records shall be stopped. Employer can not pay employee 'something' and send them away. All employers shall be forced to pay salary through bank accounts only and this will make the job of Labor Inspectors and Government machinery, easy. No county shallban our products, stating the reason that we are employing child/bonded labour.
5. Our next hurdle shall be sellers/employees in unorganized sectors. Do we really require people to be classified as unorganized?. The moment, we stop currency, people will be forced to complete formalities [ employer, employee, seller,vendor whoever it might be]. So the person who is working as housemaid needs to open a Bank Account and house owner [employer] needs to pay the standard minimum wage to housemaid and nobody can exploit poverty of a fellow citizen.
6. Sales/service/income tax calculations will be 100% accurate. This can make Tax evasions, absolutely difficult for indivisuals as well as firms. One shall not receive money through any hidden transactions. Shop owners shall keep accurate records for stock and they can not increase the price unnecessarily because bills are mandatory for entire transactions.
7. There can be sharp decline on street vendors or rag pickers. It is good for future of India to make any business formal, legal and registerd. Do we require our kids to become school dropouts and start working in the so called unorganized sector? If we discourage odd jobs in unorganized sector, obviously more employment opportunities shall be created in organized sector. Bonus would be 100% literacy, make people motivated to go for proper education and a highly skilled and professional workforce.
8. Encourage registered business and discourage business in unorganised sector. When somebody starts a registered business by paying rent and taxes, if a street vendor starts selling the same stuff outside shop [may sell the product with 50% discount because, no rent & tax], we are actually discouraging organised business. To start any business, sale or service, we shall make Bank Account, registration with government authorities[license], mandatory. If we do this, this will become another pool for revenue and obviously we can ensure standard wage to employees. We can even introduce WiFi enabled soft pay kiosks. Government or banks can give financial assistance to start business and complete formalities/registration. By making billing, mandatory for sale and cash transactions, 99% consumer exploitations shall be avoided. Quality of products/ services shall be improved.
9. Sale of banned drugs, illicit liquor, smuggled goods, grey market stuff and sex trade can be reduced to a large extent. There coule be a possibility that people those who are in illicit business can open Bank Account and register business for some other purpose and continue their illegal business but Government/other statutory bodies can easily trace the roots, source of revenue and find the culprits. This can makes citizens to change their life style. Most of the onsumers shall be not at all comfortable with digital transactions, i.e to swipe cash card or credit card for payment towards buying a banned product/illicit service. The fear factor can be caught later with the bank transaction records' may work here.
10. Next loophole in digital currency could be money accepted in other countries for illegal activities or corruption in India. This could happen until and unless other countries too move completely to digital currency. When all the counties march 'united' against corruption, it could be difficult to use other country Bank Accounts (Eg:- Swiss Bank Accounts) to hide money received for corruption. With digtial currency in India, eventhough somebody manage to receive the money in other country Banks, end of the day, spending that money through legal means could be difficult because of transparency established through digital currency. Transferring that money to India could be difficult and RBI can easily crack it.
11. Abolition of existing black money in country shall be another outcome. Banks can reject digitization of cash if the source of income is not provided or not genuine. Sale/Transfer of assets too can be blocked, because one can not simply accept cash, instead the same to be accepted in a Bank Account. Billions of black money can we wiped away and this shall discourage people to crave for black money. People will invest money in business in an organized manner and business environment will become more professional. Once country's economy is improved, definitely more investment can be attracted and this shall improve our infrastructure, standard of living and overall economy itself.
12. Another possible issue to be addressed could be mode of payment for transactions for foreigners in India. In case if other countries are not willing to abolish hard cash, it is not going to affect us. The moment, a foreigner or NRI lands in any airport, facilities can be provided to convert the foreign currency to to digital cash in a cash card. Similarly Indians when travel abroad, can make use of the cash card to draw foreign currency.
13. With digital currency, jobs associated with currency printing, cash handling in
organisations /banks, cash collection etc., can become redundant. But the growth in organised sector will definitely create more jobs and redeployment would be pretty easy. As Bank Account is mandatory for a citizen, more than 100 crores accounts to be maintained and this shall create more opportunities. The cost to provide high security to print,store and circulate cash can be saved and no need to worry about fake currency.
Let's hope for a country which is absolutely free from all sorts of Corruption
Disclaimer :- Kindly note that this is expression of an idea based on beliefs and perception of author. Media reports, day to day observations, scams in public life, personal experiences etc would have been influenced that. This is visualisation of a solution and possibilities of technology and not based on any research, statistical analysis or authentic studies
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