More than 14 lakh consumers and 77 thousand merchants have been rewarded till now for embracing Digital Payments. NITI Aayog said, 226 crore rupees were rewarded under Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana, which were launched on 25th December last year. <br/><br/>The Ayog said, as part of the government initiative in popularizing Digital Payments, DigiDhan Melas are being organized in 100 cities over a period of 100 days. As on 30th March, which was the 90th day, the Melas have been held in 26 States and 7 Union Territories. <br/><br/>The 100 days of the DigiDhan Melas will end with the Mega Draw on 14th of April. Melas have been planned for Gangtok, Imphal, Haridwar, Nellore among others for the remaining 10 days. <br/><br/>NITI Aayog said, since demonetization, there has been a phenomenal 584 per cent increase in transactions made through the UPI. In this same period, payments using Adhaar have also seen an unprecedented jump of 1352 per cent. <br/><br/>It said, the BHIM App, the UPI payment App launched by the Prime Minister on 30th December last year, has been downloaded a record 18 million times since its launch. Besides there has been an increase of nearly 13 percent in the number of PoS machines, indicating that more number of merchants are willingly accepting digital payments. The Ayog said, around 8 billion transactions take place annually through digital payment methods. <br/><br/>It said, government is planning to increase this number to 25 billion transactions in the current year to bring an end to the shadow economy by reducing black money flowing into the system.