Shillong, Mar 23: The state government on Friday said it is focusing on migration towards cashless economy.
“We are focusing on government of India’s policy of migration towards cashless economy,†chief minister Conrad K Sangma said in his budget speech here on Friday.
He said the state has launched the “Meg e-payment†portal which can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on the internet, with mulit-bank option and multi-payment mode options such as Internet Banking, Debit/Credit cards etc.
According to him, tax payers can now pay taxes online from the comfort of their homes without having to visit the Treasury or the Bank at all.
Besides taxation department, the system was also extended to transport department, he said while adding the creation of employee database has been fully completed and improvement of the management information system (MIS) shall be taken into account on priority basis.
Following the Centre’s policy of reforming the government’s delivery system by re-engineering the existing process in welfare schemes for simpler and faster flow of funds, Conrad said the state Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Cell was constituted in 2016 and the state DBT Portal was launched on August 4, last year.
Stating that the portal serves as a dashboard displaying progress of implementation of DBT in the state, he said so far, 65 centrally sponsored schemes and sub-schemes including both cash and in-kind transfers, and one state scheme have been on-boarded.
“So far, the number of DBT transactions during the current year has crossed 20 crore and the amount has touched Rs 360 crore,†he said while informing since aadhaar enrolment at present is only 18%, the govt is implementing non-aadhaar based DBT through e-transfer.
The chief minister also said the government is trying to expand the bank branches, with special emphasis on the rural sector as one of the important factors for DBT mechanism to run smoothly is to ensure beneficiaries have access to the formal banking system.
