President Pranab Mukherjee urged all citizens to support the less cash mission of the union government on Sunday.

Speaking at the 100th Mega Draw of Lot for Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana, he said, “India has a long way to go to become a cash less society. Presently, we remain primarily a cash based economy with about 95 per cent of the personal consumption and 86 per cent of all transactions being in cash.” It is necessary to reduce cash in circulation and impart greater urgency to promoting secure digital payment methods to ensure greater transparency, he added.

The President urged all citizens to extend their ‘unstinted support’ to the mission of a less cash India and said that all efforts of the Government will achieve their end only if people were to adopt them pro-actively.

An official release stated that under the Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana, daily, weekly and monthly rewards worth Rs 256 crore has been disbursed to over 16 lakh citizens over the past 100 days for making and accepting small transactions digitally. It also noted that 15,000 consumers have qualified for total prize money of Rs 1.5 crore every day. Additionally, 14,000 weekly winners, both consumers and merchants, have received total prize money of over Rs 8.3 crore every week.

The winners will be felicitated by the Prime Minister on April 14, 2017 at Nagpur, on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti.

President Mukherjee also lauded the Aadhaar enabled payment system and stated that it has made digital payments possible for even those sections of the population who may not have mobile phones. He said, “India is on the cusp of a digital revolution. More than one billion Indians have a unique identity number with a biometric identifier which is unique in its own way…The Aadhaar card initiative is a watershed event in the development story of India.”