District Budgam has been shortlisted for Prime Minister’s excellence award in public administration for taking lead in the State for promoting the cashless economy. So far, under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Harun Malik, digital payments facility has been installed at 670 places across the district.The venues include 372 ration shops, 285 fertilizer shops and 13 Revenue (Tehsil) offices across Budgam, while as the district has also witnessed 800 percent increase in the collection of revenue of electricity bills through the digital mode during current fiscal.Pertinently, Budgam and Srinagar are the only two districts which have been shortlisted from the State this time for the excellence award.For the successful implementation of the digital payments, 421155 bank accounts have been seeded with Aadhar, while as 549550 accounts have been seeded with mobile numbers across the district.In order to ensure successful implementation of the digital payments system in the district, DC supervised the training of 80,000 citizens through audio-visual presentations by CSC centres. Workshops to aware and encourage the cashless mode of transactions were conducted in all degree colleges, secondary schools, hospitals and sub-district hospitals of the district.A vigorous campaign was also launched through different social networking sites.Meanwhile, training for the administrative staff and their subordinates were also conducted, and DC convened meetings and held open discussions with members on regular basis to improve the digital payments in government offices.Under the directions of DC, all petrol pumps were asked to install POS machines for the digital payments.Village Lanura of Khasaheb in the district was declared first cashless village in the state, hence, taking lead in the promotion of digital payments.Under the DC’s directions, the disbursement of payments only through digital payments, scholarship programs, ration shops using digital payments and Pradhan Mantri Grameen Digital Saschata Abhiyan and seeding of Aadhar and phone with Bank accounts has been proving as a boost for the successful implementation of e-governance across the district.