Odisha govt sets target to provide RuPay card to 11.40 lakh farmers by March

Bhubaneswar: Following the announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convert Kisan Credit Card to RuPay cards, the Odisha government has set a target to provide RuPay card to 11.40 lakh farmers by March this year.

Talking to media persons today, Cooperation minister Damodar Rout said the state government is bound to implement the RuPay card scheme of the Centre. He, however, said it is not possible to tell about the benefits of this scheme. “The outcome of this new scheme would be known only after its implementation,” he pointed out.

Tusharkanta Panda, Managing Director, Odisha State Cooperative Bank, said the farmers can withdraw limited amount of money from any ATM of any nationalised or private banks through RuPay card. Besides, we are taking steps to provide Point of Sale (POS) machines in all 708 Samitis through which the farmers can withdraw money by swiping their card.

Notably, in a letter to Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Managing Director of Odisha State Cooperative Bank (OSCB), DGM, RBI and DGM, Nabard, Bhubaneswar yesterday, Deputy Secretary, Cooperation, SK Mishra had said as per the terms of National Mission on Financial Inclusion, all the agricultural borrowers from the banking system need to be covered under RuPay Kisan Credit Card. Since the Centre is giving emphasis on digital payments eco system in rural areas and agriculture sector post demonetization, there is a need to issue RuPay Kisan Card to all agricultural borrowers in short term cooperative credit structure on priority basis.

“In view of high priority accorded by Government of India for promotion of digital transaction and payment amongst the farming community in rural India and expansion of digital payment infrastructure in rural areas. Cooperative Banks are to extend financial support for issuance of EMV (Europay, Master Card and Visa) chip and PIN - RuPay Kisan Card and installation of Micro ATMs,” Mishra said and informed the aforesaid officials to attend a meeting convened by the Principal Secretary, Cooperation on January 12 at the State Secretariat.

As part of its initiative, the Kisan Card has been redesigned with a micro chip which will have detailed information about the card holder.

Till date, several cooperative banks and commercial banks in Odisha have distributed 44 lakh and 9 lakh Kisan Cards respectively. The state government has set a target to convert these Kisan Cards to RuPay debit cards by June this year.

RuPay is a combination of two words – Rupee and Payment. RuPay is an Indian version of credit/debit card. It is very similar to international cards such as Visa/Master.

RuPay debit cards are similar any other debit cards. One can access them in the 1.45 lakh ATMs and 8.75 lakh POS terminals across the country. It will also be accepted on 10,000 e-commerce websites. All major public sector banks, including SBI, have started issuing these cards to all their customers. The card also comes with a high end technology chip named EMV (Europay, Master Card and Visa) especially for high end transactions. It also has an embedded micro processor circuit with information about the card holder.

Users will get alerts for every transaction made through this card whose processing fees compared with regular debit/credit cards will be considerably lower.

This Indian domestic card scheme was conceived and launched by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to fulfil the objective of the Reserve Bank of India to have a domestic, open loop, and multilateral system of payments in the country.