Facing a slump in cash after demonitisation, Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) has introduced a smart card which will work as a cash card as well as a card to avail different services provided by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA).
A meeting was held between the BMC, BDA officials and representatives of seventeen banks, six public-sector and mobile banking facilitators such as PayTm, ITZ cash, Ezee pay and Phone Pe on this regard.
A common payment card (CPC) will be issued to the citizens by the banks associated with the BSCL. “We will tie up with one bank that will develop its own infrastructure to introduce the facility. The design of the CPC will be jointly decided by the partner bank and the BSCL,” said In Krishan Kumar, Vice-Chairman, BDA.
The prerequisite to use the card is that the card holder needs to have an account with the partner bank.
“If anyone wants to avail the CPC he has to open an account which will be free of cost. The existing customers will be given the card for free. It is like a debit card and not the one which needs to be recharged intermittently. The card’s unique number will be linked to the bank account. Upon swiping the card, money will be debited from the account for the services availed,” Kumar added.
While covering various sectors, CPC will be used to pay holding tax, advertisement license, trade license fee, availing birth and death certificate, hiring kalian mandaps for social events, availing city bus services, paying parking fee, payment for getting building approval, penalties imposed by the various government agencies, filing tender papers among others.
