PM honours bureaucrats for making Manipur’s Karang India’s first cashless island

Incentives were provided for training towards digital payments and five POS machines were installed on the island.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday honoured bureaucrats for making Manipur’s Karang the first cashless island of the country, and implementing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and other priority initiatives of the Centre.

Modi awarded civil servants for smooth implementation of four priority programmes -- Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban and Rural), Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana, and for promoting digital payments.

Also, awards were given away for innovation in public service.

Karang island, a remote and backward region, was cut-off from the (Bishnupur) district due to insurgency for a long time. Incentives were provided for training towards digital payments and five POS machines were installed on the island, the award citation read.

Self-help groups and youth clubs were roped in for community mobilisation and parallel activities were conducted on the island for Aadhaar enrolment and opening of bank accounts, it read.

An online channel was launched to make people aware about digital payments. In addition, social media interventions were made for the purpose, according to the citation.

As a result, 92% of the bank accounts were seeded with mobile and 70% of them were seeded with Aadhaar.

The percentage of the electricity bills paid digitally increased from 78% to 97% in the last 20 months, it said.

Modi gave the award to Deputy Commissioner of the district for promoting digital payment. Besides, the officials concerned were honoured for popularizing electronic payment in Daman and Haryana’s Sonipat.

Under the innovation category, awards were given to the Banka district administration in Bihar for reinventing education using technology, and to a group of officers for implementing the GST.

Senior IAS officers were appreciated for innovation in “ease of doing business in India” and for “information, education and communication of Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin)”.

Awards for excellence in public administration were given away by Modi during the Civil Services Day function here.

Assam’s Dhemaji and Telangana’s Karimnagar were awarded for the best implementation of ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushal Yojana’, aimed at adding diversity to the incomes of poor families and cater to the career aspirations of rural youths.

Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra and Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch were awarded for the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin) aimed at providing pucca houses with basic amenities to all homeless people.

Puducherry and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Telangana, got the PM’s award for implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) under which affordable houses are provided to the urban poor.

West Tripura and Maharashtra’s Beed were awarded for the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana -- a crop insurance scheme.