Proposal for cashless government to be floated soon
Posted on: 13/Nov/2016 5:40:58 PM
A request for proposal, or RFP, will be issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology by December to set up a common e-governance platform for end-to-end transactional experience for a citizen, businesses as well as internal government functions. An RFP is issued by an agency to invite bids for a particular project from interested parties.
Speaking about this, a senior government official said, We had issued a framework sometime back with an aim that all government departments, ministries, agencies - both from Centre and States - should make their payments system electronic…they should be in a position to collect and make payments in an electronic mode. Our idea is to eliminate use of cash in dealing with government bodies.
While some government departments have introduced electronic payments system, a lot of PSUs, schools and courts have said they lack mechanisms to introduce such a system. For all such entities, this will be a single platform. We have done a pilot for the programme. There are large number of government schools, hospitals, courts,anyone can use this. So, this is a mammoth project for which we don’t have the capability. There will be a need to cater to thousands of customers, so we need an agency to do it. The implications of such a platform on corruption will be huge. If cash isn’t involved anywhere.there can be no deniability. If someone has taken money, it will be easily traceable. For payments happening out of Central government, over 97 per cent are already electronic.
