Bhubaneswar, Oct 25 Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said that Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has become the world’s largest real-time payment system, with monthly transactions exceeding Rs 2,400 crore.
Sitharaman was addressing a gathering after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Reserve Bank of India’s data centre and Cybersecurity Training Institution here.
“This RBI campus will house mission-critical payment systems, including RTGS and NEFT. Its training institute and research wing will build expertise in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and data centre technologies,” Sitharaman said.
She hailed Modi’s ‘Purvodaya’ policy and said, “We will ensure that there is ‘Purvodaya se Sarvodaya’: when the East rises, its light reaches all of India.”
The finance minister also expressed her gratitude to the workers and engineers who built the campus, and extended congratulations to the RBI.
She said the PM had resolved that no Indian household would remain outside the banking system.
“Banking facilities have been provided to the last man in the line; over 59 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened,” she added.
“Through Jan Dhan accounts, money is transferred directly to people, without leakages,” she said.
Under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana, more than Rs 43 lakh crore has been sanctioned to over 60 crore collateral-free loan accounts for micro and small entrepreneurs.
She said many people have repaid loans and taken more loans to further fund their businesses.
She noted that more than 65 per cent of the beneficiaries were women.
Under PM SVANidhi, nearly 1.2 crore loans have been disbursed to street vendors, who have also repaid loans and taken more loans to grow, Sitharaman said.
Similarly, PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, PM Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) are providing very low-cost insurance and pension benefits, the finance minister said.
In a social media post, Sitharaman said the Bhubaneswar campus stands close to the world-famous Sun Temple at Konark.
“In the ‘Aditya Hridayam Stotram’ of Ramayana, Maharshi Agastya tells Shri Rama on the battlefield of Lanka that the Surya Bhagwan protects the worlds with his rays and nourishes all beings. In that same spirit, the @RBI & its new campus will serve the nation, protecting the financial systems of India and sustaining the flow of payments that nourishes our economy,” she added.
(PTI News)
