Finance Minister said "public digital infrastructure helped small businesses grow"

India's approach to expanding the network of digital infrastructure with public money helped small traders and businesses grow in India, unlike other countries. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said this during an event in Bangalore on Saturday. Interacting with students at Jain University in Bangalore, Sitharaman said that the government and stakeholders played an important role in making the development of digital infrastructure a success.

The Union Finance Minister said, "India's approach to spreading the digital network was completely driven by the public money of the country. It was funded by the government. India built a huge infrastructure, allowed it for banking purposes, allowed it for health purposes, allowed it for marketing purposes, allowed it for payment purposes and allowed it for education purposes, unlike many countries in the world that relied on the private sector for digital payment technology."

Sitharaman said, "So the public infrastructure that was built was kept free for small and common users. So a small business that wanted to grow, today wants to reach markets beyond their village." Highlighting the success of the digital revolution in the country, she cited the example of her interaction during her visit to Nagaland. She stressed that due to the success of the digital revolution in the country, NGOs in Nagaland are also getting orders from the US during Christmas. He further said that the government has come up with Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an open network for digital commerce that is also helping large e-commerce businesses.

The Union Finance Minister said, "People are not waiting for someone to come and educate them in terms of digital inclusion and financial inclusion because it is already in simple language and reaching their phones. They are able to access it and it will only increase. We only need to constantly update the technologies in the future.

The Union Finance and Corporate Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday reviewed the performance of 10 Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) of the Southern Region at Bengaluru. The Union Finance Minister went through the performance of RRBs of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry. The Finance Ministry gave this information on social media platform X.

The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, Secretary, Department of Financial Services (DFS), senior officials of DFS, officials of state governments, representatives of SIDBI, NABARD, stakeholders of RRBs and sponsor banks. Implementation of RRBs in the country has been a long pending demand of the Finance Minister as they play an important role in facilitating rural economy. Performance of RRBs in various parts of the country is being reviewed.