Not difficult to have 50% cashless payments in Goa: Parrikar

Panaji: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said it is not so difficult for Goa to have 50 per cent of cashless transactions, if certain bottlenecks are removed.

"It is not very difficult to attain 50 per cent cashless payment in Goa. How long it will take to achieve that level will depend on various bottlenecks that are currently existing in the state," Parrikar told reporters here.

"For example, POS machines availability is getting strained. So, as and when more and more PoS machines will come, more and more transactions will shift to cashless," the former Goa Chief Minister said.

People have already shifted in a big way to cashless payments, he said, adding that at petrol pumps across the state almost 60 per cent transaction is through cards.

"Many people dont know that to have a debit card, you dont have to necessarily have an account. There are prepaid debit cards available," he said.

Parrikar said when the concept of cashless society was introduced in the state last month, then the transactions were almost 20 per cent through cards.

"After that the (cashless) transactions have almost increased to four times. We cant give exact data because the banks are not ready with data, they are too busy with this demonetisation process. But safely we can say, it has definitely increased to more than double," he said.

Pointing out that Goa government departments are also increasingly going cashless, Parrikar said there are some difficulties to make revenue collection cashless and they are being tackled.

"Now they are working on each government department having an account of its own where all the money will be collected and in the evening it will be credited to the central treasury," the senior BJP leader said.
"As far as payments are concerned, Goa government is hundred per cent cashless since 2013," he said.

Regarding the charges levied on doing a cashless transaction, Parrikar said "as the transaction increases, fees will drop. Government is also considering various options."

"I cant disclose about the options right now, but government is also trying the possibility to make transactions free (from fees payment) below a particular level by cashless mode," he said.