To give a push to its digital India campaign, Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha has directed Delhi and other Union Territories to make transactions between Government and citizens cashless by December 31.
Following which Principal Secretary (Finance) SN Sahai convened a meeting of top bank officials on Monday. In the next stage, he will deliberate the issue with officials of Finance Department on Tuesday. Chief Secretary Dr MM Kutty has already pressed the Deputy Commissioner of all eleven districts into negotiation mode with banks on one hand and the Residents' Welfare Associations (RWAs) on the other so that this scheme unfolds at the earliest.
The Cabinet secretary's move is likely to help the banks to focus more on dispensing currency notes to the needy people and ensure maximum transactions are made through the banking system. Once the entire mechanism for the citizen-Government cashless transactions is in place, people will be bound to deposit their water and power bills, traffic challans and pay stamp duty through the banking system. So far, power companies in Delhi had been accepting cash payments for less than Rs5,000 electricity bills.
In order to assess the actions taken by the DCs and further streamline this process in social welfare and Finance Departments, Kutty will convene a meeting with all departments of Delhi Government on Wednesday. Sources claimed that 98 per cent payment in the Delhi Government is being made cashless. Similarly, 95 per cent VAT collection is being made through banks.
The Excise Department has also adopted this measure. The Delhi High Court is also working to make collection of court fee through cashless mode. The Cabinet Secretary's move is being followed on top priority. All the Deputy Commissioners have the instruction to first train the Master Trainers, who will in turn train others in the lower order, ie RWA members to opt the cashless operations. At least hundred Master Trainers will be available within one week. They will augment the cashless transactions in all the eleven revenue districts.
The Delhi Government is keen to convert all the social welfare schemes such as old age pension, widow pension on cashless mode. This transformation is a difficult target, claimed officials. But the Delhi Government has already initiated the move to implement cashless transaction mode across the city by December 31.
All the social welfare schemes in the Capital such as old age pension and widow pension will become thoroughly cashless operation by December 31.
Even collection of VAT and Excise duty and challans during traffic violations will also fall under this category.