Mumbai: Maharashtra is going all out with its plan to help rural areas go cashless. The State government will train people in 30,000 villages to use credit, debit cards and mobile wallets over the next three months.
The State will set up ‘Digital Sewa Kendras’ in each of these village gram panchayats and install 11,000 Point of Sale (PoS) machines for smooth transactions.
An army of 10,00,000 volunteers will fan out to teach villagers five different modes of digital payments, senior officials told The Hindu .
The move is part of the Digital Maharashtra plan approved along with the Aadhaar Bill in the winter session of the Assembly in Nagpur.
The volunteers will train villagers in Aadhaar-enabled payment systems (AEPS), use of debit/credit cards, Unified Payment Interface (UPI), USSD-based mobile banking (on basic mobile phones), and mobile wallets, officials said. “We are confident of making our rural economy cashless in the next three months. The first phase will be completed in one month,” said an official of the finance department.
The digital plan is being implemented against the backdrop of 93 per cent telephone density, completion of 73 per cent Aadhaar seeding, use of 1.60 crore Jan Dhan accounts and 1.23 crore Rupay cards in the state, officials said. The Aaple Sarkar Sevakendras to be used will be equipped with modern IT infrastructure.
“All government receipts will go digital using the Aaaple Sarkar portal and Aaple Sarkar Sevakendras,” sources in the Chief Minister’s office said.
Maharashtra will install 30,000 Point of Sale machines at Aaple Sarkar Sewa Centres over the next 3 months, of which 11,000 will be in place next month.
“The PoS will also be set up at merchant establishments dealing in fertilizer, seeds and so on for cashless payment facility,” said Secretary, Agriculture, Bijay Kumar.
A senior official in the Skill Development department said student volunteers of Indira Group of Institutes, Pune, had pledged to be volunteers. “We will soon launch Maha-Wallet- with co-branding of the Government of Maharashtra to promote interoperability among payment wallets,” said an official.
