District Collector Kona Sasidhar on Thursday appealed to all merchants to use e Point of Sale’ (ePOS) machines to transact rather than use cash as the preferred medium.
Speaking at a meeting held with various merchant associations ranging from fruit retailers to handloom merchants to FMCG retailers at the Collectorate, he asked them to apply for ePOS machines from their respective banks to transact digitally and promised support from the district administration to follow up and get them machines soon. Though the demonetisation move has had a few people concerned due to non-availability of cash in smaller denominations, he said the situation would be overcome in the next five days as the RBI was pumping in cash in smaller denominations.“We have just received and distributed Rs. 30 crore in denominations of Rs. 100 notes for exchange and withdrawal in the rural branches of the Andhra Pragati Grameena Bank (APGB). We will receive more over the next few days which should ease the situation,” Mr Sasidhar said.
Mr. Sasidhar inaugurated a mobile ATM from which anybody can make a withdrawal of Rs. 2,000 when the ATM stops at various places across the district.
Mr. Sasidhar said that of a total of 10-lakh accounts in the district, 5.7-lakh were Jan Dhan accounts even as he appealed to Jan Dhan account holders to collect their password pins from the respective banks over the next three days by going in person so that they could start using the debit card for withdrawal of money.
