New Delhi, March 4 (IANS): The central government on Saturday launched a major training programme for more than 13,000 small and medium businesses on adopting digital payment modes.

"The objective of ushering in transparency in the system along with reducing corruption can only be achieved with evolved participation of all sections of the society," Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a statement here.

Under the newly launched programme, the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) will organise five regional workshops at Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and 30 state workshops and 100 DigiDhan camps all over the country.

According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, these training programmes are meant to introduce digital payment mechanisms like UPI (Unified Payments Interface), USSD payment, BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System), AEPS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) to traders.

"About 13,500 small and medium unorganised/self organised businesses/traders are targeted," the statement added.

Traders and trade union leaders for training on digital payment initiatives will be mobilised by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), it said.

"The DigiDhan camps shall be organised in the market itself to digitally educate the shopkeepers and merchants. CAIT has touch based with its member and market associations throughout India and the main purpose of the regional and state workshops would be to create momentum and vibrancy among the self-organised and informal trading community," Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General of the CAIT, said.

"These regional workshops would also serve as master training on digital payment modes for traders, who would be involved with further proliferation and promotion of digital payment initiatives among their fellow traders."