Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas Sh. Dharmendra Pradhan today launched the Customer Awareness Campaigns for digital transactions at Auto Care Centre, a flagship HPCL Retail Outlet at Niti Marg, New Delhi and also at BPCL Outlet at Moti Bagh, New Delhi.The Customer Awareness Campaign focuses at spreading digital awareness and facilitating the common man to use Cashless payment options during day to day transactions. With the introduction of Cashless payment options like Credit & Debit Cards, POS terminals, e-Wallet options and Loyalty Cards at Retail Outlets, the campaign reinforces the fact that convenience lies in being cashless in today's time. The various digital payment solutions available to the general public, were also showcased.Speaking on the occasion, Sh Pradhan said that the campaign will fulfill the objective of moving towards digital transactions. Transition will be towards less cash and then towards cashless. For this purpose, all service providers have been brought on board, and an MoU has been entered with Common Service Centers (CSCs) of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, who will be deploying trainers at Oil Marketing Companies’ Retail Outlets across the country to train the general public on use of various Digital/Cashless payment modes and to promote them.
Tie-ups have been done with Public sector banks, Paytm, Mobikwik, Oxygen, Citrus, Olamoney, Ideamoney, Jiomoney, Airtel money, Vodafone MPS, Freecharge etc. In one month all retail outlets in Delhi will be covered under the customer awareness cum training programmes, and subsequently it will spread to all the ROs across the country. Sh Pradhan said that in the first phase, all Retail outlets numbering more than 53 thousand in the country will be covered in the campaign which will be further expanded to cover Gas distributors, LPG stations, bottling plants and other establishments. He said that Petrol pumps will not provide fuel through cashless transactions but also dispense cash. So far, 3413 retail outlets have been dispensing cash and they have dispensed Rs 63.55 Crore so far through PoS machines against swiping of debit cards. He said that almost 99% ROs in Delhi have PoS machines. Task force have been set up to look into the expansion of cashless services, overcome the hurdles in the path, facilitating such services through feature phones also, and exploring ways to undertake such transactions in offline mode.Today’s Customer Awareness Campaign for Digital transactions is yet another Consumer empowering initiative launched by MOP&NG and a step forward promoting the vision of #CashlessEconomy of our Hon’ble Prime Minister, Sh. Narendra Modi.