One million new PoS to be installed by March 2017

At present, the country has about 15 lakh PoS terminals across different merchants to facilitate card based payments

In a bid to expand the digital payments eco-system and facilitate the move towards cashless transactions, the government on Tuesday directed banks to install an additional one million new point of sale (PoS) terminals by end of the current financial year.

"Towards this end, banks have already placed orders for 6 lakh PoS machines and another 4 lakh PoS machines are likely to be ordered in the next few days," an official statement said.

The country, at present, has about 15 lakh PoS terminals across different merchants to facilitate card based payments.

The government also said a special drive was undertaken jointly with Labour and Employment Ministry and state administrations to open banks accounts for unorganised labour by holding camps at various locations.

"A total of 2,73,919 camps have been organised so far in which 24.54 lakh accounts have been opened," it said.

It said that after the announcement of demonetisation of high-value currency notes, banks have been making all out efforts to facilitate genuine transactions.

"Appropriate action is being taken against individuals involved in irregular and unauthorised activities. Since December 3, action against 7 officials of public sector banks (PSBs) have been taken," the statement added.