Cities told to go cashless

All 4,041 cities/towns, covering about 75% of the total 40 crore urban population in the country, has been told to shift to cashless transactions with Madhya Pradesh committing to do so by March 2017.

As a part of the ongoing efforts to move towards cashless transactions of all kind, the Urban Development Ministry has asked all the statutory 4,041 Urban Local Bodies to shift to e-payments at the earliest.

Rajiv Gauba, Secretary (Urban Development), conveyed the Central Government’s message on e-transactions through interactive video-conferencing on November 27, 2016.

The state and city level officials were also asked to promote internet banking (RTGS/NEFT), online banking using credit and debit cards for cashless transactions besides using Public Finance Management Systems(PFMS) developed by the Ministry of Financing for fund transfer, accounting and reconciliation up to the level of cities and towns.

Gauba emphasized that all transactions relating to both income and expenditure of urban local bodies needs to be shifted to e-payment mode. These include payment of Property Tax, Professional Tax, all user charges like water and power bills, all kinds of fee and license charges, online booking of community halls, issue and renewal of birth and death certificates, registration of shops and other establishments, enrollment of library membership etc.

Expenditure to be made cashless include payment of salaries and wages to all regular and contractual employees, all contract and work relate payments, procurements, beneficiary payments like social security etc.

City governments were asked to set up necessary infrastructure and capacity building, awareness campaigns for opening of accounts for employees of all categories and their family members.

States have been asked to adopt Public Finance Management systems (PFMS) up to city level to enable transfer, accounting, reconciliation and monitoring of transfer of funds under various government schemes.

To illustrate the transaction volumes, 59 cities have collected tax revenues of Rs.1,722 cr during November so far including dues payable. These include; Ahmedabad-Rs.187 cr, Bhopal-Rs.27 cr, Chennai-Rs.80 cr, Faridabad- Rs.17 cr, Guwahaty-R.s. 14 cr, Hyderabad-Rs.208 cr, Indore-Rs.32 cr, Kakinada (AP)-Rs.20 cr, Kalyan(Maharashtra)-Rs.170 cr, Lucknow-Rs.23 cr, Raipur-Rs.17 cr, Visakhapatnam-Rs.16 cr, Amritsar-Rs.12 cr, Kanpur-Rs.30 cr, Mumbai-Rs.167 cr and New Delhi Municipal Council-Rs.84 cr.

Meanwhile, officials from Madhya Pradesh said 7 major cities have already enabled cashless transactions and all the 378 cities and towns would do so by March next year.

Uttar Pradesh and Goa have started using PFMS up to city level. fii-news.com