Essay on Cashless India Essay on Cashless India in English A cashless India is the first step towards making the dream of digital India a reality. In this cashless India essay, we will be talking about the meaning of ‘cashless’, the different alternatives for our monetary system, and the disadvantages and advantages of a country going fully cashless and digital in its economy. The following cashless India essay in English is for students studying in class 5 and above. The language here has been kept simple for a better understanding of young students. This essay on cashless economy in India would enable young students to write an essay on the cashless economy in India on their own. Long Essay on Cashless India On the evening of November 8, 2016 at 8 P.M., Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India announced the demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupees notes in India. That historic decision had many reasons. One of the reasons was laying the stepping stone towards the dream of cashless India. The traditional form of monetary transactions happens with the exchange of physical hard cash between people. Cashless India is going to make it almost redundant. This idea has got a huge amount of push due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, given the concerns with the exchange of physical cash. There are a lot of advantages to going cashless. Along with advantages, there are disadvantages of going cashless too. We shall throw some light onto both in this article on cashless India. First of all, let’s understand the meaning of a cashless economy. A cashless economy is one in which the liquid transactions through the system happens with the exchange of plastic currency or through digital currency. ATM debit and credit cards are plastic currency and online payments come under digital currency. The advent of blockchain technology has redefined the meaning of a cashless economy through bitcoins. A decentralized system of finance is defined by the concept of bitcoins, but we are not focusing on that in this particular essay on cashless India. Let’s move on to the pros and cons of a digital payment system. We can see Three Main Advantages of Cashless India. Reduction of Black Money Black money is the money that is earned but not accounted for taxes. That money is hidden by people from paying taxes. This black money is an illegal instrument in an economy that is capable of reducing a government down to bankruptcy. The cashless economy will ensure there’s no black money since unlike hard cash digital money cannot be hidden. At least there is no way yet that could make the hiding possible. Digital money enables governments to track all transactions in an economy that helps keep the income authentic and transparent. The technology behind the digital economy has to be well updated and sturdy though. Transparency India has corruption inbred in its system starting from the ministerial level to the watchman level. And it exists due to the lack of transparency in our monetary system. In an economy that is as big as India, transparency is a huge issue. We have learned of scandals like the CWG or 2g scams or the Rafale Jet scams over the years, and these scams are a result of the lack of transparency in transactions. It’s a shame that a small cashless economy in India essay would never do justice to the topic since it will never be enough to write about all of the corruption scandals India has had since its independence. Corruptions of this scale could be brought down to a large extent if we could achieve that dream of a cashless economy throughout. And it's possible because the origin and endpoint of a transaction could easily be tracked in a cashless economy and that’s the biggest advantage. The Ease of Transaction With the enormous amount of technological revolutions happening, it is close to impossible to find people without a smartphone in these times. Almost every citizen possesses a smartphone. The ease of transaction through interfaces like GooglePay or PhonePe or Paytm has never been more seamless than this. The Indian government has also introduced interfaces like UPI or Unified Payments Interface for hassle-free digital transactions that are fully cashless. The dangers of transmitting possible viruses on hard cash are totally eliminated. There are Two Major Disadvantages of Cashless India. Online Theft With the improving technology of every day, there’s a rampant increase in online cheating and fraud episodes. If the government is unable to achieve sturdy and not-possible-to-hack digital systems, in a country like India with a 135 crore population, it is completely impossible to make the economy cashless. People are still afraid of making big transactions online after watching the reports of online thefts on national news channels. Infrastructure, or the Lack of it Not just the government infrastructure, it requires infrastructure on an individual level too. A gadget or a smartphone, data connectivity, and electricity for charging the phones regularly are the basic requirements for making online transactions possible. These are privileges that exist mostly in urban India and most of rural India is still deprived of these privileges. The government should first fix this before even dreaming of making a cashless India possible. Short Essay on Cashless India The Government of India took the whole country by storm by announcing the demonetization on 8th November 2016. 500- and 1000-rupees notes were no longer legal tender. This move was aimed at getting rid of the black money in the economy that was largely used to fund criminals and terrorists and formed a parallel economy. The acute shortage of cash led to long queues outside ATMs and banks trying to withdraw cash or exchange notes. This was all to initiate the fruition of a dream of cashless India. Summary In the end, the demonetization step became crucial to start a cashless economy in the country. It has paved the way towards an economy in India that is defined by greater transparency and convenience and ease in monetary transactions.