A laudable move

Reserve Bank of India RBI has taken practical step in right direction by waiving bank-charges for Real Time Gross Settlement RTGS and National Electronic Funds Transfer NEFT.

It is noteworthy that money-transfer through cheque-clearing costs much costlier to banks than electronic-transfer of RTGS and NEFT.

To further encourage cashless transactions, transaction-charges on payments received through credit or debit cards should be totally abolished.

Banks issuing credit-cards can be compensated by government through funds saved by abolition of various incentives announced at time of demonetisation on 08.11.2016 like on purchase of petrol-diesel through cards.

It is also time to abolish penalty for not having some stipulated minimum balance in banks at a time when government encourages even zero-balance accounts.

Cashless-transactions can be further encouraged by imposing cash-withdrawal limit for individuals to say rupees 48000 per month and by introducing seven-day working of all banks for twelve hours daily in two shifts by giving bank-employees two weekly holidays by rotation like is being done even presently by some smaller banks of private-sector.

Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Delhi