THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With modern banking facilities, state treasuries will don a new avatar from April. About 25 lakh treasury savings bank account holders, including government employees and pensioners, will be able to conduct e-transactions.Treasuries director Jafar A M said that efforts are on to roll out utility payments through treasuries from April. “Discussions are on with KSEB, KWA and other agencies. We hope to roll out e-payment in the new fiscal,” he said.
Credit, debit cards and a mobile app for customers are other services to be offered by the department.
The safety audit for the e-payment software developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) is being done by the Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification directorate under the Union IT ministry. The mobile app too is developed by the NIC.
Work on the pension portal’s expansion is progressing. In the near future, pensioners will be able to get break-up details of pension amount, account statement and assistance for income tax payment through the portal. There will also be a provision for uploading anticipatory income tax statement and downloading Form 16. A customer’s mobile number will double up as the user ID.
E-treasury success
The e-treasury, which enables e-payment of treasury payments, is seeing a good response, said Jafar. The facility helps the public to make treasury remittances through select nationalised banks. Government departments too can remit their collections through nearby banks.
“The number of payments through e-treasury is recording a steady increase. It is of immense help to individuals and government departments in faraway locations,” he said.
With the addition of Union Bank of India, the number of associate banks has increased to 10. All of them are nationalised banks except Federal Bank.
Though more private banks have evinced interest to join the system, the Reserve Bank of India had opposed such a move in a recent directive.
Digital push
25 lakh treasury savings bank account holders, including government employees and pensioners, will be able to conduct e-transactions
Credit, debit cards and a mobile app for customers are other services to be offered by the department