Vijayawada: Stressing that integration of technology was the best practice, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said that leveraging technology will help India come out of the issues of demonetisation.
He directed IT secretary Vijayanand to take real-time decisions to purchase ePos and biometric machines. He also said that Rs 1,000 subsidy should be given for procurement of biometric devices. Mr Naidu said IT, along with subject expertise will provide opportunities worldwide.
“15 years ago, I designed a curriculum to make IT compulsory for students studying various subjects. We are technology managers. Integration of technology and innovation is the best way forward,” the CM said.
Pointing that Aadhaar-enabled payment was the best way to solve problems, Mr Naidu said that he expressed the same opinion to the RBI governor when he met him last in Mumbai.
While health, human resource development, skill development, adult education and youth policies were the subjects to be discussed in Thursday's collectors’ conference, the discussion focused on damage-control exercise to be taken up over technical snags of e-POS machines across the state.
The second session focussed on power, infra, transport, tourism, industries, trade, and agri business. The second day's top focus is about finalising and declaring the action plan for 2nd half of the fiscal year.
In his opening remarks, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu spoke at length about leadership skills and qualities. Collectors were given time to speak on the problems in their respective districts. “Each collector took eight to nine minutes only to explain demonetisation impact on their districts; the entire exercise took a lot of time,” an IAS official said.
He said, “China in went for reforms 13 years before us, while we introduced reforms in 1991.” “Governments after Independence till 1990s were very strong under the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru. There was no Opposition. But the beauty of democracy is that economic reforms were carried out during minority and coalition governments,” the CM said.
Speaking on the fair price shops, he said Krishna district has performed well and that the same should be followed by other districts by encouraging bank correspondents.
RTO swipe machines get good response
Road transport authorities have installed Point of Sale machines at RTO offices for the benefit of people to avail a series of services by swiping their cards and pay charges instead of paying hard cash due to cash crunch.
The response has been good with a sizeable revenue collection ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.2 lakh per day mainly at Rajahmundry and Kakinada in East Godavari.
As a large number people visit the RTO offices to avail several services like registration of vehicles, getting driving licence, transfer of ownership of vehicles etc, shortage of cash due to demonetisation caused hardship to them to avail such services.
However, the road transport authorities have installed SBI linked PoS machines recently at RTO offices located at Rajahmundry, Kakinada and at Amalapuram.
The authorities say that they are getting revenue worth about Rs one lakh per day at RTO offices located at Rajahmundry and Kakinada and about '50,000 at Amalapuram.
Based on good response from the people, the authorities have also installed PoS machines at unit offices located at Mandapeta, Kathipudi, Peddapuram and Ravulapalem nearly 10 days ago and the people are turning up to avail the services by paying cash online. On an average, each unit is getting revenue worth ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 per day.
The authorities have also set up a PoS machine at check post at Tetagunta as the commuters have to pay entry tax for commercial vehicles of other states and fine for violation of provisions of Motor Vehicles Act.
East Godavari road transport deputy commissioner in-charge V. Siri Anand said, “After installation of PoS machines, the number of people visiting our RTO offices has gone up to avail a series of services and we are getting good revenue collection also.”
