PORVORIM: In a bid to make Goa a cashless society, the State government is contemplating opening bank accounts for unorganised labourers and unbanked rural population through banking channels, further encouraging government departments to ensure that salaries or wages of these workers are paid only through bank accounts.

“In November 2016, the government declared that Goa will become the first State to go cashless. Post demonetisation, special attention is being paid to cashless transactions and emphasis is mainly on JAM trinity – Jan Dhan, Aadhar, Mobile – to reach the unbanked,” states the Economic Survey 2016-17 which was tabled on the floor of the House by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday. 

All government departments have been asked to provide a list of unorganised labourers through the Labour Commissioners to the banks to ensure that salaries/wages are paid through bank accounts only.

In a move towards cashless banking, government will emphasise on extensive use of Point of Sale (POS) machines, use of e-wallet, use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), enhance usage of Unified payment service (UPI) on smart phones and encourage Aadhar enabled payment services for transfer of funds.

“As part of the ongoing drive for cashless transaction, small and medium sized unorganised, self organised businesses and traders are to be brought on a digital payment platform,” the report stated.

The report points out that the banks have already commenced a survey across Goa to map the number of vendors present in the State, so that those carrying out financial transactions will be brought under the e-payment mode.