‘Card payments be made free of cost beyond Dec 31’

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Friday said the digital payment facility should be made available in all suburban and rural areas forthwith.

Attending a meeting of the committee of chief ministers on digital payment system headed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu through video a conference, the state government said all card payments should be made
free of cost even beyond December 31, 2016 and service tax on online transaction up to Rs 10,000 be exempted.

On behalf of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan and Finance Secretary TK Pande attended the meeting. They also proposed that the Point of Sale (POS) machines will be provided to all government departments and other agencies by banks free of cost and the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), Electronic Clearing Service (ECS) and Real-time gross settlement systems (RTGS) services be made available for 24 hours.

Informing that there are 70 per cent unbanked Panchayats in Odisha, the Chief Secretary stressed on bringing normalcy in money circulation in these Panchayats.