Bhubaneswar, May 9: If things go to plan, city residents may be able to pay holding tax, trade licence fees, electricity and water bills online by August.

The state government plans to go completely cashless by August and to begin with, it has entered into agreements with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank for using their payment gateways.

The government has also decided to procure the point-of-sale machines from these three banks and asked all the departments to mention their requirements.

"We are in the process of assessing the exact number of point-of-sale machines required by the offices concerned. All the payment counters will have the machines based on the number of transactions they make in a day.

The offices will furnish their requirement by the end of May," said an official of the housing and urban development department.

Accordingly, Public Health Engineering Organisation (Pheo), Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and the Central Electricity Supply Utility (Cesu) will furnish their report to the government. They will have the point-of-sale machines in place and begin accepting the payments through the digital method at their payment counters by August.

"We have already introduced the online payment services of holding tax for a few of our wards, but none of our payment counters receive payments in the digital method now. We have been asked to let the government know how many machines we need and our officials are working on preparing the report. We will submit the report on time and begin the service by August," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

Besides, the municipal corporation, the Cesu also has the facility of online payment of electricity bill. But, it also does not have the digital payment services at its counter. The Pheo, on the other hand, neither has the online payment services for its water bills nor the digital payment method at its payment counters.

In order to achieve its target of going completely cashless, the government has also asked the offices concerned to hold capacity-building of its officials and undertake community mobilisation programme for public awareness.

The government has decided to provide a one per cent discount on digital payment methods to the consumer.

"Going cashless has many benefits, but it also has risks such as online fraud. The government should ensure security and safety," said Harihar Nayak, a resident of Kharavela Nagar.