People fail to pay water, power bills as e-Sampark centres refuse to accept cash

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 9

Pooran Singh, a resident of Sector 20, visited the e-Sampark Centre at Sector 21 to pay his electricity and water bills, but failed to do so. Reason: The UT Administration had issued orders not to accept cash today at e-Sampark centres as banks were closed.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that the government sector would collect Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, the UT Administration did not accept the currency notes of any denomination. 

SB Deepak Kumar, Secretary, Information Technology, Chandigarh Administration, said the orders were only for today as the banks were closed. Everyday, bank staff collect the remittances twice a day from the e-Sampark centres. As the banks were closed today and holding cash in e-Sampark centres was neither advisable nor secure, the decision was taken, he said.

The e-Sampark centres would started collecting cash from tomorrow as the banks will open, Kumar said. 

The e-Sampark staff all across the city were only collecting payments made through cheque/demand draft, debit card and credit card. A notice in this regard was pasted at the entrance of all e-Sampark centres. 

In many centres, heated arguments were exchanged between the staff and the public.