With SBI's help, MP to become first state to roll out Digital India drive

Shivraj Singh Chouhan govt to draw up plan to make 500,000 hand-held PoS machines available across the state

The State Bank of India and Madhya Pradesh government have joined hands to make the state cashless by rolling out the Digital India drive and promoting digital literacy in the state.

The SBI has embarked upon a five-week campaign by roping in National Service Scheme (NSS) volunteers to create awareness about the point-of-sale (PoS) mechanism among traders.

State chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Saturday that his government would soon come up with a plan to make 500,000 hand-held PoS machines available across the state.

"MP will be the first state to launch the drive. As many as 750,000 RuPay cards are in Madhya Pradesh, 50,000 use pre-paid cards, while 1,000 customers download mobile application daily and 50,000 transactions are routed through mobile banking. The only task is to motivate small retail traders to activate their PoS machines in smaller towns and rural areas and put them to use so that the state can become cashless," K T Ajit, chief general manager, State Bank of India, said.

Chouhan said his government had constituted a committee that would examine how the state can make 500,000 PoS machines available to traders. "The bank will promote use of PoS machines at public distribution shops, schools and colleges for fee transactions, transactions at primary cooperatives, ticketing at buses and cinemas, local government owned offices for various charges and fees like municipal taxes," Ajit added.

The state already has an online value added tax collection system, which will be augmented further in non-connected areas. "We need to make all government-public transaction cashless in our state," Chouhan said.

SBI has launched this initiative with Madhya Pradesh and is likely to join hands with other state governments to reduce cash transactions. "This Digital India drive to make transaction at traders, retailers and government-public places cashless first in India and is being launched from Madhya Pradesh. Other states are also likely to follow suit, as our bank will launch similar drives there as well," Ajit further said.

"The bank has set a target to install 5,000 PoS machines at various places every month till March next year," he said.