Govt to scale up use of digital currency for food subsidy disbursal

The government aims to gradually scale up the use of the RBI’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) for food subsidy distribution to improve efficiency in the free ration scheme, a food ministry official said.

“We will gradually move from providing free foodgrains to beneficiaries using electronic – point of sale (ePoS) machines at Fair Price Shops (FPS) to CBDC based food coupons for reducing leakages and diversion of foodgrains,” the official told FE.

The officials said that the roll out of CBDC would be expanded through several pilots where both e-PoS machine-based delivery and digital food coupons would be available to beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY).