“To facilitate digital delivery of various government schemes to the beneficiaries, it is proposed to increase the cap on amount for e-RUPI vouchers issued by Governments to Rs 1,00,000 per voucher and allow use of the e-RUPI voucher multiple times (until the amount of the voucher is completely redeemed). Necessary instructions to NPCI will be issued separately,” said RBI in a recent statement.
The move is aimed at enhancing the scope of delivery of benefits by the central and state governments. Beneficiaries can be given e-Rupi even without a bank account.
What is e-Rupi?
The e-RUPI prepaid digital voucher, developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and launched in August 2021, is a person-specific and purpose-specific cashless voucher and can be used by individuals, corporates or governments.
It is a cashless and contactless instrument for digital payment. It is a QR code or SMS string-based e-Voucher, which is delivered to the mobile of the beneficiaries. The users of this seamless one-time payment mechanism will be able to redeem the voucher without a card, digital payments app or internet banking access, at the service provider. It has been developed by the National Payments Corporation of India on its UPI platform, in collaboration with the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and National Health Authority. e-RUPI connects the sponsors of the services with the beneficiaries and service providers in a digital manner without any physical interface.
e-RUPI runs on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) platform and has a cap of Rs 10,000 per voucher and each voucher can be used, redeemed only once. e-RUPI vouchers are presently being used largely for COVID-19 vaccination purposes. There are other use cases being actively considered by various state government and central government ministries, departments.
