Till a decade ago, this village was in the grip of naxalite movement making it difficult for the government machinery to make inroads and take up development activities.
A predominantly agriculture-based village was thrown into chaos after demonetisation, but with locals here deciding to embrace technology has made Ugrawai the first cashless village in the district. Soon after the demonetisation decision was announced, the villagers had to suffer a great deal, but they took it as a challenge by opening bank accounts.
Of the total of 1,350 persons in the village, 1,111 have opened bank accounts in SBI and Andhra Bank branches at Kamareddy and have been issued ATM and RuPay cards.
“In our village, we have 400 households. Initially, about 1,081 people opened bank accounts and the rest followed suit. We need 10 swiping machines immediately to carry out cashless transactions and have been trying to get them. The officials advised us to approach Andhra Bank for swiping machines. We have decided to install PoS machines at the gram panchayat office, Bala Vikas centre, milk centre, fair price shops, hotels and provision stores,” said Abbagoni Balakishan Goud, the village Sarpanch.
Besides youngsters in the village, he said women from self-help groups, gram panchayat members, bankers and civil administrators helped the villagers to open bank accounts. Many youngsters have downloaded e-wallet apps on their smart phones and are using them, said the Sarpanch.
Though the village has no bank branches, the villagers unanimously decided to go for cashless transaction in response to the advice of the authorities who organised a series of awareness camps for the purpose. The residents have to walk five km to the district headquarters town to get cash using ATM cards.
The district administration has a plan of making 22 villages, one in each mandal of the district, the cashless villages. And Ugrawai was selected on a pilot project out of 323 villages in the district.
