THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala is among top states in using digital transaction for purchasing petroleum products, said Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas. He was speaking at the customer awareness camp to promote cashless transfer at petrol pumps in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
According to him, digital transactions in petrol pumps in the state have grown around 20 per cent post-demonetisation. “Out of the total transactions, only `2-3 crore accounted for digital payment. This has increased to `16 crore from December 3,” said Pradhan. Daily fuel payments in the state comes to Rs 80 crore. December 2 was the last date when fuel pumps accepted old Rs 500 notes. The minister said 70 per cent of close to 2000 pumps in the state already have facilities to make digital payment.
Pradhan said the post-demonetisation phase is yet to be called ‘business as usual’ as replacement of currencies that were in circulation is still a challenge. He urged the support of stakeholders in making ‘cashless’ initiatives such as credit/debit card readers, electronic wallets, point of sale machines etc, a success. The petroleum marketing companies will be burdened with around ` 3,000 crore for making the transition. The minister said it was better than handling around `7 lakh crore in cash. The minister pointed out that all contract labourers in Kochi Refinery would have bank accounts by January 26. “There are 17,430 contract employees in the refinery and only 4,200 had bank accounts. After demonetisation 82 per cent of them opened an account,” he said. Former state president of BJP V Muralidharan, Executive Director of BPCL Kochi Refinery Prasad K Panicker attended the function.