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India pushes e-rupee through welfare pilots as BRICS digital currency plan takes shape
Farmers and food programs anchor 10 pilots aimed at boosting usage, while New Delhi eyes BRICS CBDC link ahead of 2026 summit
Updated Apr 24, 2026, 9:27 a.m. Published Apr 24, 2026, 9:25 a.m.
What to know:
- India is routing portions of its roughly $80 billion welfare system through the e-rupee in about 10 pilot programs to curb leakage and corruption while giving its central bank digital currency a clearer use case.
- Targeted pilots in states like Maharashtra and Gujarat use programmable subsidies and food benefits to drive adoption, but e-rupee usage remains modest compared with the Unified Payments Interface, which handles about $300 billion in transactions each month.
- As India tests domestic applications, the Reserve Bank of India is pushing a plan to link CBDCs across BRICS nations to reduce reliance on the dollar, a move that risks provoking U.S. tariffs and broader geopolitical tensions.
In Maharashtra’s Phulenagar village, farmers are receiving programmable subsidies covering up to 80% of drip-irrigation costs, spendable only at approved vendors. A separate pilot in Gujarat aims to onboard all 7.5 million households eligible for subsidized food by June, effectively using targeted transfers to scale adoption.
The push underscores a core challenge for CBDCs globally: usage. The e-rupee has grown to about 10 million users from roughly 7 million earlier this year, but cumulative transactions since its December 2022 introduction total just $3.6 billion. That remains small compared with India’s Unified Payments Interface, which processes about $300 billion each month.
