Going Digital For That Meal
Human Capital|November 2017

Employee tax benefits in India have seen a few coursealtering changes in the past year. For starters, several benefits like meal vouchers and employee gifts are now easily available on digital platforms in a massive push away from paper-based functions.

Bhavin Turakhia
Going Digital For That Meal

Employee tax benefits in India have seen a few course-altering changes in the past year. For starters, several benefits like meal vouchers and employee gifts are now easily available on digital platforms in a massive push away from paper based functions. With the Government implementing demonetization, the step only gained momentum, and paved the way for digital payments in November 2016. Moreover, employee benefits also saw a flutter in terms of player additions in the domain of work. Through 2016, a lot of companies have joined this space in a bid to revolutionise the age-old system of manually-managed work.

Although such changes were steadily slipping in, adoption to meal vouchers in an electronic form was slow. In a course altering move, the Reserve Bank of India released a master direction in March 2017, a giant wave to rock this space, since it sought to phase out paper-based meal vouchers. The declaration has made it mandatory for all corporates to provide meal vouchers in an electronic form, a step many decision makers may not be fully prepared for, given the scarcity of knowledge on the topic, as well as a lack of familiarity into its technicalities. According to the RBI draft master direction, meal vouchers in paper format will not be accepted beyond 31st December 2017, and, like all other prepaid instruments, such vouchers can only be issued in electronic form and should be reloadable. This includes magnetic stripe cards, mobile and internet wallets, and smart cards. At a juncture when corporate India is busy upgrading their employee benefits programmes, these industry-specific insights will help decision makers to zero in on a service provider for an electronic meal voucher solution.

Legalities and compliance

This story is from the November 2017 edition of Human Capital.

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This story is from the November 2017 edition of Human Capital.

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