JANGAON: From a place that was known for its inclination to Left Wing extremism to a smart cashless village, Shamirpet, has come a long way. Today, it is only the third village in the state to go cashless.
However, this transformation to a cashless village was not so easy. It took extraordinary efforts of district administration, especially collector A Devasena, to convince the villagers that they could do transactions through plastic cards with ease.
After 15 days of awareness campaign and demonstrations, people from the village are ready to do transactions through plastic cards. Out of a population of 2,600 in the village, about 1,600 of them have bank accounts. Of this only 1,200 had ATM cards before the note ban. The banks issued cards and accounts were opened.
Today, when anyone visits the village, they would find people doing transactions through debit cards. Take the case of Srinivasa Kirana and General Stores run by Ambala Veeraiah. He does over 100 transactions everyday with debit cards. “Initially I thought it would be very difficult to do transactions through swipe machines but when I was trained by bank officials it looked very simple. I am really happy with this development,” he said. Interestingly, a tea stall owner was also using swipe machine in the village.
“Initially, I thought how could it be possible to do transactions for a small amount like Rs 5 through cards but when the bankers told me that it is possible, I installed the machine. Today I am very happy. I am selling over 200 cups of tea through cards daily,” Bhaskar, the tea stall owner, said.
Women self help groups are also doing online transactions. There are 54 groups in the village which collects about Rs 2.5 lakh from its members and deposits it in banks every month and from later to members’ account. “This was possible with the active participation of youth and children who guided their family members in learning cashless transactions,” said collector Devasena. People who do not have debit cards use Aadhaar-enabled payment.