Card, Aadhaar-enabled payments at all PDS, fertiliser depots soon

Over 170,000 PoS machines have already been installed at PDS shops

In a major push for cashless transactions, point-of-sale (PoS) machines for credit/debit cards as well as Aadhaar-based transactions will be installed at all fair price shops and fertiliser depots over the next few months.

In an interview to PTI, Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa said over 170,000 PoS machines have already been installed at public distribution system (PDS) shops and more will be done in the next few months.

“Both the department of food and civil supplies and the department of fertilisers have a programme to install PoS machines at all PDS shops and fertiliser depots,” he said.

“Also, they will be made Aadhaar-enabled,” he added.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has committed to support banks through the financial inclusion fund for deployment of up to two PoS devices per village, to cover 100,000 villages of tier 5 and 6 areas.

When asked about the impact of digital payments on cost savings, he said, “the time is too short to undertake an assessment of that and I think we should give the system a fair time, may be a year or so, to see how much gain we have had.”

He said there is a move towards digitisation, as can be witnessed in the number of people who have downloaded the BHIM and Unified Payments Interface apps and those of other service providers.

“There are about a million PoS machines ordered by the banks,” he said.

He said 68% of bookings of railways are now done through digital mode.

The demand of PoS machines in the country has increased after November 9, 2016, with 252,000 such machines being installed in the past two months.

The Reserve Bank of India has already issued guidelines to prevent PoS fraud and directed the banks to add more security features in credit and debit cards to stop frauds, vide its circular dated May 26, 2016, on upgradation of automated teller machines and cards.

Also, public sector banks have been advised by the government to structure rental payments in such a manner that the small merchant does not have to pay more than Rs 100 per month rental on installation of PoS terminals.

The Nabard has approved a scheme for giving 0.5% incentive on payments made through the Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System or AEPS, to merchants.