Free online transactions until December 31 among slew of measures announced to relieve demonetisation
NEW DELHI: The government today enhanced demonetisation relief for the rural sector by asking the national rural bank NABARD to sanction Rs 21,000 crores to cooperative banks, making new denomination notes available in 1.5 lakh post offices, doubling e-wallets’ capacity and paving the way for service charge free electronic transactions on ‘feature phones’ too, until December 31.That means there will no service charges – levied by anyone – for using any debit cards and doing online railway ticketing until December 31.
That also means these these measures will benefit not just people who have smart phones but people who have the simpler feature phones. As many as 65% of mobile phones in India are the simpler ‘feature phones.’
A cascading effect of service charge reduction will lead to these free online transactions, economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das today.
The railways already announced yesterday there will be no service charge on online booking until December 31.
Then, “TRAI has also reduced USSD charges to 50 ps from RS 1.50. “These will benefit digital transactions through feature phones … The USSD charge reduction will be matched by telecom companies which are on board to waive even the remaining 50 ps. So for all digital finance transaction on feature phones there will be no service charge till December 31,” Das said in an address to the media.
The government has decided on these measures to benefit farmers and to promote digital transactions, Das added.
“To ensure that farmers get credit and certain quantum of credit by way of cash (for wage payments, etc.), NABARD and RBI have also been advised to make the required cash available to district central cooperative banks,” said economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das today.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley held a video-conference call with NABARD and the RBI and advised them to carry out whole chain of activities smoothly, Das told the media.
In addition, Das said that 82,000 ATMs around the country have been re-calibrated so far, “so it’s only a matter of few days (that) all the ATMs will be re-calibrated.”
Das also announced a pilot program is underway in 20 banks that are using a new Unified Payment Interface mobile phone application (app). This app will enable not just making payments but also getting payments, all instantly, in real time. The transaction limit in using this app is Rs 50,000.
Looking ahead, Das said, the highways ministry has informed all vehicle makers to make new vehicles equipped with ECF-compliant RFID facility, so that highway tolls can be collected electronically.
“This also means no queues,” Das explained.
Also soon in the future, all government organizations have been advised to use only digital payment methods.
“The whole background of demonetisation…one of the positive outcomes… is we are seeing a large migration to digitization. Public sector banks say there’s a great surge in demand for prepaid debit and other cards,” Das said.
Source: TOI
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