Go Cashless While Making Payments To Government Bodies

The Narendra Modi led government is actively taking steps to make the Digital India Movement a success. Demonetizing the high value currency of 1000 and 500 notes has not been the only step. In order to promote digital payments across the country, one of the initial steps that the government took was directing all government bodies to go cashless. Most of the PSUs, government undertakings, municipal bodies have already forayed into converting their payment points digital.

Here is a list of ways and methods how you can make payment to government and government bodies cashless:

1. Utility bills - electricity, water, telephone, gas

Now you can easily pay your utility bills cashlessly. Digital wallets like Paytm, MobiKwik, Freecharge etc. provide the facility of paying electricity and telephone bills. As for your gas connections, now along with booking your new gas cylinder online, you can even make the payment online. The government is also taking active steps to enable public to make payments of utility bills through Aadhaar Enabled payment System (AEPS) and it will be launched soon.

2. Direct and Indirect Taxes

Payment of direct taxes and indirect taxes in India has become cashless since a long time now. Most of the tax remittance to government is made online through net banking. Soon the taxes will be linked to your Aadhaar and all the details of the taxes paid by you will be recorded therein.

3. Local Municipal Transport

In an earlier post about how to commute locally in a cashless manner, we mentioned how one can travel in local busses and trains in a cashless manner. You can now easily book bus and local train tickets through various ticketing apps. Otherwise go for monthly and quarterly passes and pay for them online. One can also buy prepaid cards and use them to commute in city buses or just use your digital wallet at the ticket window to buy tickets.

4. Railways

Railways has provided the facility of digital payments since a long time now. The IRCTC website allows travellers to reserve tickets by payment through net banking, debit cards or credit cards. With the emergence of various ticket booking apps, now you can book tickets using your digital wallets too. With the introduction of BHIM app, soon the facility of paying for train tickets through UPI apps will also be enabled.

5. Tolls

Now paying for Toll taxes on highways have also been digitally enabled. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has introduced FASTag. In this digital toll payment mechanism, a reloadable tag is attached to the windshield of vehicles. This tag is loaded with a specific amount by the vehicle driver through net banking or any other digital payment system. Whenever a vehicle with FASTag crosses a toll plaza, the required toll is deducted from the FASTag using radio frequency identification technology (RFID). Currently India has 350 toll plazas and FASTag has been implemented in 275 of them. In the rest of the toll plazas, FASTag will be enabled in 2017.