E-RUPI is a cashless and contactless digital payments medium, which will be delivered to mobile phones of beneficiaries in the form of an SMS-string or a QR code.
It has been developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the Department of Financial Services, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the National Health Authority.
This people-specific and purpose-specific payments system will essentially function like a prepaid gift-voucher that will be redeemable at specific accepting centres without any credit or debit card, a mobile app or internet banking.
e-RUPI will connect the sponsors of the services with the beneficiaries and service providers in a digital manner without any physical interface.
According to the government, e-RUPI — built on NPCI’s UPI system — would ensure leak-proof delivery of welfare services.
It will initially be deployed alongside the National Digital Health Mission and to support the vaccine drive, but added that it can also be used for delivering services under schemes meant for providing drugs and nutritional support.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
It is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India. It is an initiative of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
It has been incorporated as a “Not for Profit” Company under the provisions of Section 25 of Companies Act 1956 (now Section 8 of Companies Act 2013).
The ten core promoter banks are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank and HSBC. In 2016 the shareholding was broad-based to 56 member banks to include more banks representing all sectors.
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