 मेहना लाम सुर्ट्सिंग है, गाँ सुर्ख्पर से हूँ, और दिल्ली से हूँ. तीन साल से दुकान तला रहा हूँदी. ये च्यर मेहने से मशीन लगी हूँएदी. मारे गाँ में जो हैदी. ये एट्यम का तो ये दिया है, मशीन, सीचे बुत प्यधा है, कैसले सुर्ट्ष्याइ में, आप लोगो को प्यधा है, थी व्यार प्रच्क्लो मूँझे नहाए तुड जाना प्रता है, ना या एट्यम है ना को बेंके गाँ में. तीचे बुत लाव है। This is Surakpur, a small village just outside of Delhi, India where Surat can now help support his family. In just four months they have increased their monthly income by 15-30%. Thanks to the introduction of a new service, the digital payment. Basically a cashless transaction made online through mobile and enabled cards. At the centre of this, Aadhaar, a biometric identification programme introduced by the government that gives a formal and unique ID to India's 1 billion plus registered citizens. The Government of India is really pushing cashless and digital transactions in a big way and I think Aadhaar and mobile penetration in this country and the financial inclusion has been very easy to have these things done. And I am told that in one day we are having about 13 million authentications of Aadhaar. That means there are 13 million transactions in which people are authenticating either through their fingerprints or through their iris because iris is also one of the factors of authentication in Aadhaar. Low cost, scalable and practical, the scheme has proven to be a useful tool for the government and could be a model for digital financial inclusion in other emerging markets worldwide. In one year, in one programme, direct benefit transfer in cooking gas has saved 3 billion dollars. This is twice the value of cost of Aadhaar. So there is a huge substantial savings to the government without compromising the sort of benefits to people because that saving money can again be used for benefiting more number of people. So in a way it has reduced the cost of delivery. It has made subscription to those facilities paperless and it has saved government from duplicates and ghosts. The single digital identification document underpins India's financial inclusion and through the scheme in just a few months the government has helped to open 240 million bank accounts. You can open a bank account using Aadhaar. You can transact bank account using Aadhaar and mobile becomes, actually if you link your mobile number with Aadhaar mobile becomes another digital identity and mobile can be used for financial transactions. Mobile can be used for communication. So the financial inclusion identity number and the mobile all three are a very powerful empowering tools in the hands of people. Almost everybody in this country now has bank accounts, now has mobile phone and now has Aadhaar. So it's a complete picture. Aadhaar and digital payment services have helped support local communities across the country and changed the landscape of commerce in India. Semi retired Surat and his family are a great example of the program's national impact. It's a key step to transforming India into a digitally empowered society. I am Lucy Spencer for ITU News.