Digital payments are picking up in the country after demonetisation, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said here on Tuesday, adding that this has led to transparency in transactions.

There was a need to empower people in rural India by developing technology products that could facilitate and accelerate health and education, the minister added.

Prasad was speaking at an event where chip manufacturer Qualcomm announced investment of $8.5 million to expand their design initiatives in India that will support companies in the areas of rural technology, biometric devices, payment terminals and others.

The minister asked Qualcomm if they "can come up with an innovation of a chip that can become integral to Aadhar".

"With Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society, Qualcomm is committed to offering support to help India's ecosystem to grow and cater to increasing consumer choices," John Han, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Qualcomm Technology Licensing, told reporters here. 

The initiative will be called 'Qualcomm Design in India Programme' (QDIP) and it will provide Indian mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) vendors advanced technology with the launch of a new 'Innovation Lab' at Hyderabad and expansion of the current 'Innovation Lab' in Bengaluru.

"Indians are innovating for big companies. They should be given support so that they create for India too," Prasad told reporters here.

Qualcomm also declared the top three winners of its first edition of the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge (QDIC) which was launched in December 2015 in association with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom). 

The selected winners -- Carnot Technologies, iFuture Robotics and Uncanny Vision -- were awarded $100,000 each.