VIJAYAWADA: Seeking to make cashless transactions popular in the higher echelons of power, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday asked District Collectors to go for shopping and conduct two digital transactions using their mobile phones seeded with Aadhar numbers and share their experiences on the day-2 of the two-day Collectors’ conference.
In his address at the conference, Mr. Naidu said mobile banking transactions were the only alternative to come out of the present currency crisis and asked the Collectors to encourage the mobile phone-based banking transactions seeded with Aadhar numbers in the urban areas to mitigate the impact of the cash crunch.
When the Chief Minister asked officials to explain alternatives and innovative systems to carry out cashless transactions which were hampered by shortage of e-PoS machines, Krishna District Collector Babu A. demonstrated the mobile banking system using a biometric system costing Rs. 2,000 adapted to smart phones.
He said that people can carry out their shopping easily by giving their finger prints through the biometric devices and Aadhar number.
Impressed with the system, Mr. Naidu announced Rs.1,000 subsidy on the biometric device and asked the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes to encourage the traders to purchase the gadgets immediately.
Mr. Naidu further exhorted students of all colleges and officials to visit the villages on fourth Saturday of every month and encourage people to switch to mobile banking transactions.
He said the digital payments architecture would be discussed thoroughly at the meeting of the Committee of Chief Ministers slated for December 28 and hoped it would come up with ideas that would give the much-needed impetus to the usage of plastic money.