THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Demonetisation has hit the Technopark techies hard. At a time when even small-scale vendors have switched to electronic transactions, the trade centres at the IT park in the capital city are still stuck in the era of cash payment. The restaurants here are neither accepting cards nor going in for e-payment facilities.
Renjith Kumar, a techie with a multi-national IT company, was surprised by the reluctance of the food court owners inside Technopark to accept plastic money. He had relocated to the city a month ago from Bengaluru.
“I used to carry out transactions through e-payment facilities like PayTM. I also used debit cards to make payments. But whenever we approach a restaurant other than the branded ones, we are forced to shell out change. Something which is in shortage today. The attitude of the shopkeepers too is very annoying,” said Kumar.
Kumar said, “I had lunch at a restaurant operating in the building called Nila. When I went to pay the bill, the cashier shouted at me saying ‘we don’t accept cards, pay in cash’.” When Kumar tried to bring the cashier’s attention to the facilities like Mobile POS and card payment, the latter began to curse demonetisation in earnest.
The situation, however, is not the same in all the blocks in the park. For instance, the food court at Tejaswini building accepts plastic money and has in place an e-payment system including PayTM.
When contacted, Rajeev Krishnan, the founding member of Prathidwani, an NGO, said some of the restaurants offer Sodexo coupons for lunch and dinner. “The coupon system is widely accepted. But a majority of techies prefer electronic payment instead of ready cash. Hence, the authorities should do something about this,” he said.
Major IT companies including TCS, UST global, and IBS have their own restaurants and they have a permanent e-payment system. But the most affected techies are those working in the Nila building and Bhavani blocks. Taking into consideration the problems being faced by the techies, NGOs at the park are going to launch a digital transaction campaign.