NPCI disburses over Rs. 245 crore worth of prize money for NITI Aayog’s Lucky Draw Schemes

by Suman Gupta

Mumbai: National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in the country is pleased to inform that over Rs. 245 crore worth of prize money has been disbursed to about 18 lakh winners for NITI Aayog’s Lucky Draw Schemes for consumers and merchants.

Mr. A. P. Hota, MD & CEO, NPCI said, “The transaction repository of the 1st draw on December 25, 2016 which was at 6.39 crore increased to 28.32 crore on 97th draw held yesterday at Agra. The 98th draw is scheduled in Goa and 99th will be in Allahabad. The 100th and final mega draw is likely to take place during the period from April 9 to April 14, 2017. The date and venue is being finalised by Government of India.”   

There are three mega prizes for consumers worth Rs. 1 crore, Rs. 50 lakh and Rs. 25 lakh. For merchants too there would be three mega prizes worth Rs. 50 lakh, Rs. 25 lakh and Rs. 12 lakh. It will be declared on 100th Mega draw.

Highlights : 
* There has been a positive response among people from various   age groups and occupations to adopt digital payments. 

* Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Karnataka emerged as the top five states / Union Territories with maximum number of winners. 

* Salaried professionals, students, businessmen, housewives and people working in Agriculture sector were top winners. 

* Majority of the winners were in the age group of 21 to 30 years. There were also a good number of winners who are above 60 years. 

The two schemes are - Lucky Grahak Yojna (LGY) and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojna (DVY). They were launched on December 25, 2016 and shall remain open till April 14, 2017. Schemes are aimed at incentivising both consumers and merchants to promote digital payments. There are 15,000 daily winners qualifying for total prize money of Rs. 1.5 crore. In additional to this there are over 14,000 weekly winners qualifying for total prize money of over Rs. 8.3 crore every week.  

Customers and merchants using RuPay Card, BHIM / UPI (Bharat Interface for Money / Unified Payments Interface), USSD based *99# service and Aadhaar Enabled Payment Service (AePS) are eligible for wining daily and weekly lucky draw prizes. 

NPCI is working with the government to organise Digi Dhan Melas at 100 locations till April 14, 2017 by demonstrating the above mentioned products to promote digital payment. This will help to inculcate digital payments as a habit amongst the masses.