Udupi : Shobha Karandlaje, MP, said on Tuesday that the Hallady-Haklady village in Kundapur taluk in Udupi district will soon be declared a cashless village. She was chairing a meeting of the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee, here.
Ms. Karandlaje said that the process of registration of mobile banking had been completed in Hallady-Haklady and shops too had been given Point of Sale (PoS) machines to promote digital transactions.
The meeting was told that of the 158 gram panchayats in the district, only 40 had PoS machines. But even these 40 gram panchayats were not using these machines because they had to pay monthly rentals ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 800 per month to banks. They also had to pay Merchant Discount Rate ranging from 0.75 % to 2.25 % per transaction. In addition, there were connectivity problems.
Ms. Karandlaje said that the banks should take up these issues with the State-level Banking Committee and promote internet or mobile banking. All the banks should adopt at least one village and promote cashless transactions there. Once this pilot project was successful, it could be undertaken in all gram panchayats in the district, she said. Ms. Karandlaje said that she had received complaints that BSNL network was not available whenever there was power cut in the rural areas of the district. She sought the details of diesel being supplied to BSNL mobile towers to run their generators during power cuts. She directed BSNL officials to immediately repair OFC cables which got damaged during road repairs.
BSNL officials said that the number of 2G towers in the district was 216, while that of 3G towers 164. At least 100 more towers were required for BSNL connectivity to be available throughout the district.
A proposal for this had been submitted to the Department of Telecom, they said.
Ms. Karandlaje said that the Kendriya Vidyalaya was functioning in the district for the past couple of years in the school building belonging to the State government. The district administration should provide land so that Kendriya Vidyalaya could have a building of its own. It should also sanction land for the Indian Institute of Gems and Jewellery, which was sanctioned for the district recently.
“If you give me more land, I will get a food processing unit from the Centre,” she said.
Ramesh Murthy, Assistant Director, District Industries Centre, said that 20 acres of land was available at Nandikur Industrial Area, while about 40 acres of land was available at Belapu Industrial Area for the food processing unit.