ROURKELA: WITH increasing thrust on cashless economy, the intelligentsia has mooted formulation of a national policy to incentivise electronic transactions in all Government, semi-Government utilities and institutionalise all business-to-business transactions.
Former director of National Institute of Technology-Rourkela Prof SK Sarangi pointed out that IRCTC charges Rs 11.5 with surcharge and Service Tax per ticket from consumers for electronic transaction, while those standing in queues outside booking counters are exempted from it. “This is a gross discouragement against electronic transaction and the customer should get the benefit,” said Prof Sarangi. He suggested formulation of a national law on giving incentives to customers for electronic payments after the present change in currency policy.
Regional Manager, SBI, BB Das said SBI customers using Internet or mobile banking are not charged, while shopkeepers using SBI’s Point of Sale (POS) machines pay 0.75 per cent to the bank for dealings upto Rs 2,000 and one per cent for transactions beyond Rs 2,000.
Electronic transactions are on the rise after ban of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. He, however, admitted that some shop-keepers unfairly try to pass on the electronic transaction charges on to the customers.
Incidentally, Axis Bank has been offering its customer surcharge waiver at fuel filling stations on use of Axis Bank debit card till December 31.
Civil rights activist VP Tiwari said, it is a discouragement that under normal circumstance a customer has to pay 0.4 per cent surcharge at fuel filling stations against e-payments. He called for a uniform national policy.
Incidentally, for several years NIT-R has been largely dealing in electronic transactions and BTech admissions in 2013 were done electronically to receive about Rs 80 crore.