To assess the situation post demonetisation, a delegation of the Union Government visited Uttarakhand and held meeting with Chief Secretary at the Secretariat on Wednesday. The delegation members visited some districts separately to gauge the mood of the people post the shock move of the Centre. While Joint Secretary Electronics and IT RK Sudhanshu visited Chamoli, Pauri, Rudraprayag and Dehradun Director Heavy Industry Sanyuka Sammadar visited Tehri, Haridwar and Uttarkashi and Deputy Secretary Power Vikramajeet Singh visited Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital and Almora. During the meeting, they were apprised of the actual situation prevailing in the State following the implementation of the Prime Minister’s November 8 announcement.
During the meeting, the members of the delegation stressed that they were in constant contacts with the bankers to spare the people inconvenience triggered by the move. Under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme, the bank accounts of the beneficieries are being linked with Aadhar card numbers and things would be completed by December 5, they said, adding that they were organising camps as part of the special campaign. Things being completed, the beneficiaries of the pension schmes, scholarship schemes, MNREGA, those named after Gaura Devi and Nanda Devi will get their cash benefit into their accounts, they said.
The members of the Central delegation said that RuPay debit card have been disbursed among the beneficiaries and 52 percent PINs have been disbursed with the remaining being completed shortly. They further said that V-sat was being installed to solve the connectivity problem. To facilitate the people, shorn of banking facilities, bank mitras are being sent, they said. Besides 4000 common service centress (CSC), functioning under Information Technology (IT) department, are being used, they further said.
They said that RBI is going all-out to resolve the cash crunch crisis. They stressed that the District Magistrates should monitor the situation constantly and the officials should ensure that the farmers do not face inconvenience.
They made it a point that to ensure availability of cash in the ATMs, review meetings should be conducted twice a week — Wednesday and Friday. The people being allowed to clear the government dues in denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 by November 24, theofficials have been instructed to make sure that the windows of all the collection agencies remain open on November 24 despite the day being a gazetted holiday.
During the meeting, Additional Chief Secretary Dr Ranbir Singh, Secretary Finance Amit Negi, RBI GM and heads of banks were present.