Venkat Sir, your view of eRupi as a voucher is correct. Let's not bring in whether it will win vote or not. Modi's GOI generally wants to do the right thing.
Actually eRupi is a game changer. Let me explain, and later I will also incorporate your use case for a farmer.
Couple eRupi with JAM. JAM is an authentication & authorization step for a service or a product. That is, given your JAM (Jan Dhan account, Aadhar & Mobile) one can authenticate who you are. With your Jan Dhan and Aadhar & mobile one can authorize what service you are eligible for. For some services you may not need Jan Dhan account, mobile and and Aadhar will do.
Now let's say the ministry for women and child welfare wants to provide nutritional laddoo to each child at the anganwadi.
Here is a fotu of an anganwadi where the kids are getting their mid-day meal. I think the kids deserve at least a laddoo each every day. Just for being nice cute kids.
Now, GoI can send eVouchers to the phones of the parents of the kids registered at the Anganwadi. The parents can go to any Laddoo vendor in their rural village or town. Some vendors specialize in selling laddoos but there are general mart vendors who source laddoos from other parts of India.
A laddoo manufacturer, say LadduRam (tm) has perfected healthy nutritious laddoo (
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/lif ... d=77225110) and mass manufacturers 100k laddoos a day to be distributed throughout India.
There is a demand for LaddooRam laddoos in Delhi's Hauz Khas as well as in the remote village where the anganwaadi is situated.
Of course the laddoo manufacturer has no distribution channel into the anganwaadis itself. And does not want to interact with state governments to provide them laddoos to be redistributed for mid-day meal scheme. That is, by itself the angaanwadis do not have a way to provide quality laddoos to the kids.
How can you deprive laddoos from their cute eaters? That deprivation is criminal to laddoo. But now, you can go to the local kirana shop, ask for Ladoo and then scan the evoucher that will pay for that laddoo. In fact you may have couple of eVouchers as well for other general items like toor dal or say special soaps or personal hygiene items. But right now my eye is on the laddoo.
The eVoucher will ensure who got the service, who got paid and where. For the kirana store, its just another sale. Now duly recorded in digital. They just need to send the sale information to the local distributor who consolidates and sends to the manufacturer. And the manufacturer presents the vouchers to the GOI to get back the money or registers against its own CSR.
Point is, that GOI has completely reused the existing efficient distribution channel to provide a targetted delivery of a service (nutritional laddoo is a service and health intervention). LaddooRam(tm) manufactures at a mass scale and actually it would be a great marketing for LaddooRam(tm) to be selected as a certified manufacturer. In fact it can advertise that when it advertises its nutritional laddoos to mass market.
Replace Laddoo with
* Drip irrigation system for farmers (any ISI certified system can be transacted from anywhere)
* Solar panel installation
* Medical diagnostic services (you get a QR-code on your phone which can be used to get a chest X-ray)
* Internet services for BRF Jingoes
* Medicines for BP, Diabetes etc weekly/monthly from any medical shop
Take a step further. You are running a successful travel agency. To your staff you want to give a perk. You can buy Rs. 1000/- eVouchers from GOI to be used for UDAN. And you give two e-Vouchers to your employee. Using the UDAN scheme (
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 53301.html), the employee or their parents (or near or dear ones) can avail a flight to a very well deserved destination vacation (or pilgrimage, since UDAN serves Shirdi, Varanasi etc).
Disclaimers:
* Laddoo was an illustrative example. Please do not go into debate of which Laddoo is better. All laddoos are to be equally and equitably consumed. Without any discrimination.
* As an employee perk UDAN is another example. Feel free to replace with eVouchers to movie tickets for say Uri or Sardar.
Added later:
This is indeed a game changer. The entire CONgoon culture and in some cases even the state bureacracy can be bypassed. Think of eVouchers for LED bulbs, or battery powered Scooters.
BJP MPs and MLAs should step up and start enrolling their voter base into JAM and eVoucher schemes.