New Delhi, May 9 2014: Indian President Pranab Mukherjee  has dedicated ‘RuPay’ India’s own card payment network to the nation.
He congratulated the Reserve Bank of India for having envisioned the need for conceiving such an indigenously managed service in 2005 and entrusting this task to the National Payments Corporation of India in 2010. It usually takes five to seven years to build a fully functional card payment network. The NPCI could make the RuPay service operational by April 2013.
An indigenous system like RuPay will not only reduce the dependence on cash and cheque modes of settlement but will also make it easier to offer products based on specific requirements of diverse user sets within the country.
The President said that  7 million cards issued so far is only a fraction of the potential. Launch of milk procurement pre-paid card by milk procurement agencies or grain procurement agencies in Punjab are other such variants of the card payment mechanism which only a card payment system developed within the country can appreciate and implement faster.  The dedication of RuPay to the nation is thus symbolic of the maturity of the payment system development in India  he added.The President presented appreciation plaques to 17 banks for their contribution in connection with RuPay card