Agartala, Dec. 13: Extending support to the Centre's idea of cashless and digital economy, the United Bank of India has decided to adopt two villages to set up basic infrastructure needed for the drives.
The villages are Patunagar in Sadar subdivision, between Agartala town and the airport, and Sachindra Nagar colony in Jirania subdivision, 25km northeast of Agartala.
In these two villages, all necessary facilities for cashless transaction, including free WiFi, will be set up in markets and shops so that people can transact business and make payments.
"We have made considerable progress in launching facilities like mobile banking, united UPI, e-passbook and point of sale (PoS) machines to help the villagers of Patunagar. This will be operational very soon after our officers and employees give practical demonstrations; the Sachindra Nagar colony village will be taken up a while later," said Mahendra Dohare, chief regional manager of the UBI here.
Since the UBI is the leading bank in Tripura with a network of 42 branches, highest among all operational nationalised banks, it has taken the initiative to play the pioneering role in familiarising people with cashless and digital economy.
UBI executive director K.V. Ramamurthy, accompanied by other officials, visited Patunagar and Sachindra Nagar yesterday to see how free WiFi can be installed in both the villages for easy Internet access.
They also spoke to local businessmen and representatives of people at the panchayat level to explain the modus operandi of cashless and digital transactions.
The bank will install several PoS machines in both the villages.
Dohare said Tripura was now free of any liquidity problem as there was enough stock of high denomination Rs 2,000 notes, introduced after the demonetisation move.
"There is a shortage of lower denomination notes like Rs 500 and Rs 100 but the RBI is sending consignments of notes and we are disbursing them daily; this will help resolve the problem soon," Dohare said.
He added that all the ATMs were being daily stocked with new currency notes to cater to the needs of the people.
