The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
A kind of cash: e-wallets and how they work
There are strong reasons — and financial incentives — for using smartphones to pay. However, there are big challenges too. SHRUTI DHAPOLA explains
ROAD AND rail accidents kill about 1.5 lakh Indians every year. That is 0.01% of the country’s 133 crore population. It is a significant cost to pay for the benefits of modern transportation.
Elephants have no use for roads and trains. And yet, at 10-20 deaths on tracks per year, the loss to their 30,000-strong population in India is five times higher in percentage terms. And it is getting worse every year.
A report by the Elephant Task Force, commissioned by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, estimated that over 100 elephants were killed by trains in the first decade of this century. As many as 20 were killed in 2010 alone. There were two large tragedies: 6 deaths in Odisha’s Ganjam district on December 29, 2012, and 7 deaths in North Bengal on November 13, 2013.
2016 has been a bad year — the last five months have witnessed at least 15 elephant casualties on tracks — 2 in Tamil Nadu (June), 3 in Kerala (July and November), 3 in West Bengal (August), 2 in Jharkhand (September), 1 in Uttarakhand (October), and now 4 in Assam over 2 days (early on Monday, early on Tuesday). On every occasion, locomotive drivers are accused of flouting the speed limit of 40-50 km/h in elephant corridors.
Of the 88 identified elephant corridors in India, 40 have national highways running through them, 21 have railway tracks, and 18 have both. It makes little economic sense to impose restrictions on speed or night traffic along such lengths of India’s ever-expanding linear network. Also, accidents can happen even at low speeds — due to human errors and the unpredictability of animal movement.
In North Bengal, for example, the night speed limit used to apply to only 17.4 km — a length arrived at by adding a series of short stretches of 1-3 km each in an 80-km stretch between Alipurduar and Siliguri. Since 1-3 km doesn’t cover even the braking distance, trains ran slowly over the entire distance. So it did not make a difference when the forest department extended the 17.4 km go-slow stretch to 79.60 km in 2013.
Speed restrictions are feasible only in short, singular stretches, such as the 11 km killer stretch near Berhampore in Odisha, the 8 km stretch that cuts through Jharkhand’s Palamu, or the 4 km death trap in the Palghat Gap that connects Kerala’s Palakkad and Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore through the Western Ghats. It is not an option on steep gradients, such as Assam’s Karbi Anglong, where trains have to accelerate to climb the slope.
Speed restrictions, wherever feasible, must be guided by real-time inputs from forest staff on elephant movements to help locomotive drivers. A protocol put in place in Rajaji National Park helped avert elephant casualties for 12 long years. Followed rigorously, it still holds good, and can be replicated in short stretches elsewhere.
But where a track or road cuts across several wildlife corridors over a longer stretch, the real solution is realignment. For example, it makes little sense to restrict the speed of trains along the 80 km Alipurduar-siliguri stretch, when there is a less vulnerable alignment available through Falakata.
Where realignment of a longer stretch is not possible — like the track that must cut through Rajaji National Park to connect Dehradun to the rest of India — we need elevated tracks with underpasses for safe, unhindered animal movement.
This requires major investment, and all forest routes across the country can’t be realigned or elevated overnight. But the Railways needs to prioritise, and consider the aspects of speed and safety while planning new projects or expanding existing ones.
It isn’t only about conservation either. Luckily, the Railways has avoided major passenger casualties so far, but collisions with elephants almost invariably damage and derail locomotives, lead to temporary suspensions of service, and impose costs on the exchequer. These considerations should help offset the cost burden of route realignment or constructing underpasses.
In the past, cost-cutting, or a lack of understanding of animal behaviour, or both, have come in the way of finding viable solutions. Given their size, elephants do not venture into narrow, low passages. They don’t climb vibrating ramps to cross a highway or railway track either. Funnelling the animals towards designated passageways is also critical because herds stick to their traditional routes.
The first recorded instance of elephants taking an underpass was in South Africa’s Kwazulu-natalprovince.thenkenyabuilta6metre long underpass, linking Mount Kenya National Park and Nagre Ndare Forest Reserve, which is being used by herds since 2012.
At home, solitary bulls occasionally used the Dogudda aqueduct to cross the Chillarishikesh highway, but the matriarchal herds stayed away. Not until 2010 did we have the first evidence in India that adequately-built underpasses allowed regular herd movement.
About 35 km of NH 152 that connects Assam’s Pathsala to Bhutan’s Nganglam cuts through the buffer zone of Manas National Park. Anwaruddin Choudhury, then deputy commissioner of Buxa district, insisted on realigning the original road that ran through the core of the National Park and constructing two underpasses.
When the highway was ready in 2010, it offered two 30-foot high and 100-foot wide passageways, which elephant herds started using within months.
The solutions don’t have to be necessarily expensive. In many areas, it may be also possible to funnel elephants with fencing to designated level-crossing zones where they will not struggle to climb up or down the tracks. But site-specific, scientific remedies need to be decided upon, and implemented irrespective of the cost.
The healthiest forests, wrote the 12th century Western Chalukya king Somesvara III in his Manasollasa, were the ones in which elephants thrived, and it was the sovereign’s duty to protect those forests. Eight centuries later, in an increasingly crowded and denuded India, these large, long-ranging animals are hopelessly squeezed for space and starved of resources.
In the last three years, more than 200 elephants have died in conflict with humans across India. Another dozen or or two lost on killer tracks may not make a big difference unless we, as a nation, are serious about the future of our wild elephants. FINANCE MINISTER Arun Jaitley on Thursday announced more reasons to go cashless — among them, discounts on insurance, automobile fuel, highway toll and train tickets paid for using credit/debit cards and e-wallets; accident insurance for railway tickets bought online; transaction fee waivers in online dealings with the government and PSUS; and service tax exemptions on credit/debit card transactions up to Rs 2,000.
The announcement provided compelling financial reasons for heeding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice, in his Mann Ki Baat radio address, to drastically cut cash transactions. It also indicated the opening of new opportunities for e-wallets such as Paytm, Mobikwik, and Freecharge. In the financial ecosystem that the central government envisages — and has been pushing aggressively — these apps that primarily started for mobile recharges could now be used everywhere from vegetable vendors to high-end salons.
What exactly are digital wallets, and why has their use seen such a boost since November 8 when Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were demonetised?
How do you get hold of a digital payments app — or a “mobile wallet”?
With a smartphone, it’s easy. Paytm, Mobikwik, Freecharge, or even ones like Oxigen, are available on the official Android Google Play store or the Apple App Store. Make sure you download them from the official stores only; you will use them to make financial transactions, security is very important, and it is not wise to go to third-party stores. Banks like HDFC, ICICI and SBI have their own digital wallet apps, so you can choose them as well — but again, check the publisher’s name and ratings so you don’t fall for one of the several fakes in the store with misleading keywords in their names. Definitely don’t click on Whatsapp or Facebook links that promise to guide you to these apps — even if they have been forwarded by friends.
For those who have basic smartphones that can’t access the Google Play store, Mobikwik, which claims to be the second biggest mobile wallet in India, has launched a 1MB app that can be downloaded by giving a missed call to a number. Mobikwik says the app works even on 2G/edge connectivity.
How do you set up and load your wallet?
Once you have downloaded the wallet, you just need to open the app and follow instructions. Most digital wallets let you sign up with your mobile number. Once that is done, you can create a password and start your account. Or you can choose to log in via your Facebook or Google account, depending on whether the app supports it.
After this, tap on the ‘add money’ option. Do this via netbanking or debit/credit card. You have the option of saving your debit/credit card details to make future transactions faster. Some apps have services for cash pick-up in Delhi-ncr and Mumbai.
Most wallets have a tab that shows how much money it has. RBI has increased the limit for these wallets to Rs 20,000 per month until December 31; it was Rs 10,000 per month earlier. Which means if you’re planning to depend on an e-wallet for a lot of transactions, it might make sense to have multiple accounts with several apps.
What can you use these apps for?
Demonetisation has forced a lot of places to accept digital payments. Mobikwik, Paytm, and Freecharge are being accepted at toll plazas; in Mumbai, Freecharge is an option for paying police challans. Mobikwik is accepted by IRCTC, Paytm supports flight tickets within the app. Reliance Jio plans to get 10 million merchants on board for its Jio Money Merchants solution. All of these apps are aggressively targeting smaller merchants to ensure they are accepted at more and more places. Your neighbourhood grocer might have switched already.
If both you and your friend/relative has a Paytm or Mobikwik account, you can transfer money by entering their mobile number and the amount. You also have the option of sending money straight to someone’s bank account. Most wallets have cancelled the 1% transaction fee they would charge earlier.
OK, but why a smartphone app — and not a debit card?
As of August, India had only 14.6 lakh point of sale (POS) machines. The demand for these machines has spiked since November 8, but their numbers will likely stay far short of requirements for quite some time. A digital wallet is seen as a convenient and safe way to pay by smartphone users. India has an estimated 240 million smartphone subscriptions; the number is projected to more than double to 520 million by 2020. The user can just load the wallet, with no need to save bank or card information. At the merchant location, the money can be transferred without need for swiping a card. Most apps are offering consumers cashbacks and discounts for transactions.
What are the limitations of e-wallets?
The monthly limit shackles both consumers and merchants. There’s the option of getting an EKYC and raising the limit to Rs 1 lakh for consumers, but again those without Aadhaar are left out.
Digital wallets are for those with some experience of the way digital transactions work. The unlettered, the elderly, and those without smartphones will be largely left out. Poor connectivity and patchy Internet are serious challenges.