Haryana govt to promote cashless transactions

Haryana government today decided to promote cashless transactions through electronic mediums such as debit/credit cards, especially the RuPay card, and through other modes of digital payments to enable ease of doing business in the state in the wake of demonetisation.

Disclosing this here, Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu said that the State Bank of India (SBI) has agreed to provide the Point of Sale (POS) machine facility free of charge to the state government and its departments across the state.

The SBI would not charge any fee either from the government and its departments or from the customers, he said.

The transactions settled through POS terminals would be credited by SBI to the respective department's Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) bank accounts.
 

"Therefore, all Administrative Secretaries, Heads of Departments, Divisional Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, and Registrar General, Punjab and Haryana High Court, Chandigarh, have been asked to identify the locations for installation of POS machines in consultation with SBI and provide requisite infrastructure facilities such as landline with internet connectivity and mobile connectivity, for this purpose," he said.

Similarly, departments would provide the details of Nodal Officers to SBI, who would coordinate with the department's field offices and SBI, besides organising training workshops.

He said that the DDO concerned would deposit the amount received from SBI through POS machines immediately in the state treasuries through e-GRAS (Government Receipts Accounts System) using net banking or through offline mode, as presently in practice.

In order to facilitate the seamless operation of POS machines, departments are allowed to open one centralised bank account at DDOs level with SBI, exclusively earmarked for transactions done on POS machines by relaxing the Finance Department's instructions dated February 11, 2016 regarding closing of bank accounts as a special dispensation.

The Finance Minister said that the departments were required to enter into separate agreements with SBI for opening of bank accounts, and for installation and maintenance of POS machines.