By: Krishna Prasad
Telangana has registered the highest number of e-transactions in the country post-demonetisation.
With just a 3.51-crore population, the state topped all categories of digital transactions. It recorded over 15 crore digital transactions during the last five months. The share of digital economy in the state reached 5% of the gross state domestic product in another feather in the cap of the state.
According to data sourced from the Electronic Transaction Aggregation & Analysis Layer, a government of India initiative to monitor digital transactions across the country, Telangana is racing ahead towards becoming a cashless society. “More than 450 workshops on digital transactions were conducted to train 5,75,448 people at village level and 2,34,000 small businessmen have been trained in digital transactions,” said Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya. After demonetisation, 50 lakh new bank accounts were opened taking the total to 88.9 lakh. Of 21.36 lakh NREGA accounts, 19.86 were seeded with Aadhaar numbers and 2.40 lakh Rupay cards activated. The state reported a healthy spread of electronic operations in 127 government and private services. The highest number of e-transactions were reported in rural development services such as NREGA musters, and weekly payments, followed by commercial tax services such as collection of VAT and online central sales tax returns.
“Increase in the digital transactions has helped us in beating the demonetisation effects and ensured regular tax revenue to the exchequer. It has also improved transparency,” said K. Ramakrishna Rao, state principal finance secretary.
T-Wallet, a state government initiative, is expected to start from April 1. Speaking about the delay, IT minister KTR said, after the Centre’s BHIM app, efforts were being made to upgrade T-Wallet.
Source: Times of India