Siddipet To Go Become Cash-Free By December 30

The Siddipet district in Telangana is all set to become the first district of a State in India to become 100% cash-free with completely digitized transactions, by December 30.

Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao today visited his semi-urban home turf (Siddipet) and interacted with farmers, small businessmen, shopkeepers etc., and asked inquired about the progress they were making in understanding and adopting technology for transaction, and got a largely positive response.

Speaking at the meeting, the Minister said that the local authorities had taken up the initiative to educate and train people of Siddipet in carrying out electronic transactions. Rao also said that all people in the district now had bank accounts to their name, and knew how to transfer, draw and deposit money through the online and electronic banking services.

"Each and every person in Siddipet now has bank accounts. Most shops including farmer markets (ryot bazaar) are equipped with smartphones and swipe machines. The problem of hard cash (change) has been eliminated in most areas through cashless transactions. Farmers are using the token system wherein the buyer is given a token worth a few rupees. At the end of the purchase, they have to show the token and swipe their cards in swiping machines or simply transfer money to the vendor's account using mobile apps such as Paytm," he said.

As per the people, cash-free transactions were indeed a boon as they helped them save money. They also said that unlike what a lot of Opposition leaders claimed, electronic transactions were less cumbersome and extremely easy to understand.

The Irrigation Minister expressed hope that the target of making Siddipet completely cash-free by December 30, and Telangana in the near future will be achieved.