Bhubaneswar, Sept. 6: The Centre wants to promote cashless transaction across the country, but the people here are yet to get the ease of paying for basic utilities - such as water, power and taxes - with a debit or credit card.

A reality check by The Telegraph today found that none of the utility payment counters of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Central Electricity Supply Utility (Cesu) or the Public Health Engineering Organisation (Pheo) have point-of-sale (PoS) terminals or card-swiping machines.

The utility payment counters of the BMC accept payments for holding and other taxes, while Cesu receives payments towards electricity bills and the Pheo accepts monthly water bill payments.

'I came to the Pheo payment counter at Kharavela Nagar for paying my water bills this morning. I forgot to withdraw cash from the ATM on my way here from home. So, I requested the man across the counter to allow me to pay using my debit card. But, he said there was no way I could use my card to make the payment as they did not have point-of-sale machines. I had no option but to return home without paying the bills,' said Unit-III resident Subhadra Mitra.

An elderly person who went to a water bill payment counter at the Forest Park post office also faced a similar ordeal. 'I had used up all my cash buying groceries. So, I thought of paying the water bill using my debit card. But the post office personnel said that they did not have any card-swiping terminal to accept my payment,' said the senior citizen, who lives in Forest Park.

Contacted, an official of the Forest Park post office admitted that they did not have machine to accept card payment. 'We have no point-of-sale machines. Nor do we know when will we get those. Only our main branch (head post office) on Mahatma Gandhi Marg might have one. But, I am not sure,' he said requesting anonymity.

The Pheo had earlier entered into an agreement with IndiaPost for receiving water bill payments through various post offices. But, none of the Pheo counters across the city or the post offices have any card terminals.

The land registration offices on civil court premises here also do not have any payment-accepting machines.

'One has to carry huge amount of cash for land or flat registration purposes. So, these registration offices should have been the first facilities to get card terminals from the government considering how unsafe and inconvenient it is for people to carry bulk cash. But none of the registration offices here have got card-swiping machines,' said Old Town resident Bikash Mahartha.

Cesu's payment counters also tell the same story.

'The finance department is now analysing the requirement of card terminals. They may choose to supply us some machines if they feel it is required. We have no authority to procure the machines by ourselves,' said a Cesu official.

Cesu senior general manager S.K. Swain admitted they did not have any point-of-sale machines, but also said that online payments was possible on the Odisha Online portal using netbanking, credit and debit cards.

'We are accepting online payments and have also intimated about our requirement of point-of-sale machines to the government. Once the government gives us the machines, we will install those immediately at our counters for the convenience of our customers,' said Swain.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said they were expecting the government to bail them out with at least some card-swiping machines for their payment counters at the civic headquarters and the Jan Seva Kendras.

'We hope people will be able to swipe their cards and make payments at the counters in our headquarters and the Jan Seva Kendras soon,' he said. However, he could not set a deadline for the facility to start.