*Roll-out plan for enabling digital payments awaited
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 27: At a time when enough focus is being laid by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Cashless Bharat Mission, Jammu and Kashmir is soft-paddling on rolling out plan for enabling digital payments in Government-citizen transactions and ensuring coordination between all the agencies although committees at various levels were constituted in this regard nearly two months back.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that in a transformative attempt to weed out black money and corruption from public life, the Union Government launched Less Cash-Cashless Bharat Mission across the country and constituted a committee of officers headed by CEO of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog at central level.
The primary task of this central committee was to enable 100 per cent conversion of Government-citizen transactions to the digital platform by identifying various digital payment systems appropriate to different sectors of economy. Even directions were issued to all the States for taking similar initiatives at their own level for enabling digital payments and to achieve expeditious movement into the cashless and digital payments economy.
Acting on the instructions of the Union Government, General Administration Department of J&K vide Government Order No.405 dated March 30, 2017 constituted committees at various levels for effective implementation of Less Cash-Cashless Bharat Mission in the State. It was decided that these committees will primarily focus on enabling digital payments in Government-citizen transactions in rural development and some other sectors including Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs.
For the State Level Coor-dination Committee, Admi-nistrative Secretary of Department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj was made Chairman with Administrative Secretaries of Information Technology and Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Departments as its members. Even Commissioner, Comm-ercial Taxes Department, Commissioner Excise Depar-tment, Director Panchayats, Mission Director State Rural Livelihood Mission, Chief Executive Officer Integrated Watershed Management Project, Director Rural Sanitation, Member Secretary MGNREGA and representatives of State Level Bankers Committee were made members of the State Level Committee.
It was specifically mentioned in the order that the State Level Coordination Committee will frame roll-out plan and training calendar, coordinate with all involved agencies, issue advisories, monitor the roll-out and trainings with timelines and assign targets to the Divisional Level Coordination Committee for enabling digital payments.
“Though the committee was supposed to meet once in a month to act on the terms of reference yet no meeting has been convened during the past nearly two months”, sources said, adding “in this way the State Level Coordination Committee has failed to perform the task assigned to it which otherwise is the prime focus of Union Government particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
Due to the failure of the State Level Coordination Committee to act on terms of reference, even Divisional Level Coordination Committees headed by Director, Rural Development Kashmir/ Jammu having representatives of Information Technology Department, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, State Level Bankers Committee, Chamber of Commerce and Industries and Retailers and Traders Association as its members could not convene its meeting.
“This is mainly because it was explicitly mentioned in the order that State Level Coordination Committee will assign targets to the Divisional Level Coordination Committee for enabling digital payments”, sources further said, adding there was no point in convening meeting of Divisional Level Committee in the absence of roll-out plan and targets, which were supposed to be prepared and fixed by the committee headed by Administrative Secretary, Rural Development Department.
Not only the Divisional Level Coordination Committee even District Level and Block Level Committees are finding it difficult to initiate any step towards enabling digital payments in the absence of instructions from the State Level Committee, sources said, adding “due to this the Less Cash-Cashless Bharat Mission has failed to receive due attention in Jammu and Kashmir”.
When contacted, an officer of the Rural Development Department told EXCELSIOR on the condition of anonymity that frequent transfer of Administrative Secretary during the past some months is the main reason behind lack of focus on implementation of Less Cash-Cashless Bharat Mission.
What was the fun of framing multi-level committees with much hype when no follow-up action was to be ensured? sources asked, adding “keeping in view the lackadaisical approach of the State Level Coordination Committee Chief Secretary B B Vyas should intervene immediately so that effective steps are taken for translating Prime Minister’s instructions into reality in Jammu and Kashmir”.
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