Odisha govt to encourage cashless transaction

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to encourage digital payment mode to ease the problems being faced by people following the demonetization move.

Finance secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said,

To raise awareness on digital payment among the people, a training program would be held at the district level under the guidance of the district collector.

“The aim of the training program is to acquaint people with the cashless transaction,” Pandey added.

It was decided at a meeting chaired by chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi here on Tuesday.

Padhi advised NABARD to monitor the installation and functioning of the V-Sat units in unconnected and unbanked areas.

The bank representatives present in the meeting also requested NABARD to sanction more V-Sats for  rural areas.

Director Institutional Finance Tapan Kumar Pradhan appraised that as of now NABARD has sanctioned 599 V-Sats for internet connectivity in rural areas.

The state government also decided that Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM) would function as Corporate Banking Correspondents (BC) for various banks in rural areas.

Presently, OLM has around 1200 Bank Mitras and 2.5 lakh Self Help Groups (SHGs) operating in rural areas. The credible SHGs and the Bank Mitras would be engaged as BCs, said Pandey.

In the first phase, BCs would be engaged in around 1000 gram panchayats of 107 blocks, he added.

In the meanwhile, State Bank of India, UCO Bank and  Gramya Bank have approved the proposal for engaging OLM as Corporate Correspondent. Other banks are likely to accord approval to this shortly, said Panchayati Raj secretary Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh.

The model would be rolled out in all GPs of the state within 6 months, he added.