As many as 370 villages in Telangana were identified as ‘cashless’ post-demonetisation in November last year but the electronic mode of payments there has faded into background now as cash is freely exchanged. There was not even monitoring of implementation process in ‘cashless villages’ as currency was freely available in banks and ATMs. Officials said that they lost count of the number of swiping machines linked to banks as people had shifted from cashless to ‘cash’ mode but admitted many of the devices were not functioning. Though the Government and banks were not worried that the cashless movement failed to intensify since currency was no longer an issue, the concern was about hoarding of money by people. However, nearly 70% of them received money from banks and the remaining post-offices.

Source: The Hindu August 07, 2017 14:06 UTC