The Modi administration in a bid to incentivise the use of digital transactions has doled out Rs 200 crore as cash rewards, government statistics show. The biggest beneficiaries of the government’s largesse have been RuPay debit card holders.

These debit cards were issued to 220 million people while opening their bank accounts under the Jan Dhan programme for getting India’s unbanked population into the formal banking sector. Government statistics show that almost 1.6 million people were rewarded with cash – varying from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 crore. Out of these, 1.38 ...