In a meeting of the Committee of Chief Ministers on digital payment system on Friday, Chief Secretary AP Padhi raised the issue of deficient banking infrastructure in the State.
He stated that 70 per cent of the Gram Panchayats (GPs) with 47 per cent of rural population do not have a bank branch.
He told that Banking Correspondents are also not active due to a host of reasons. One-third of the GPs even do not have a Banking Correspondent. Therefore, it is extremely important to start mobile vans and temporary counters by banks immediately in rural areas to provide access to banking and other digital payment services. Banking Correspondents with micro ATMs, particularly enabled with Aadhaar based payment system, should be activated, he said.
The Chief Secretary further stated that telecom connectivity in Odisha is still very inadequate. One-third of the villages are not covered under mobile connectivity. Only less than 2,000 GPs out of 6,238 GPs have wire line broadband service. Under the ongoing Bharat Net Project, so far only about 350 GPs have been enabled with high speed internet facility. Since digital payment infrastructure at present is extremely weak, especially in semi-urban and rural areas, there is an urgent need for the Government of India to ensure that Bharat Broadband Nigam limited accelerates the project to connect remaining GPs as early as possible. At the same time, the Government of India should ensure early commissioning of sufficient mobile towers through BSNl utilising Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund. He further emphasized on availability of data connectivity with sufficient bandwidth when there is only limited voice connectivity at present, the Chief Secretary said.
Chief Secretary Padhi also suggested that card payments should be made free of cost even beyond December 31, 2016; Service Tax on digital transactions up to `10,000 should be exempted; all Government payment gateways should be made bank neutral; POS machines should be supplied by banks free of cost to Government departments, local bodies and other agencies; inter-operability and security aspects of e-wallet transactions should be ensured by the RBI and NEFT, ECS, RTGS modes of electronic payments should be made possible round the clock.