STA, CTU waive MDR charges on swipe machines

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune news service

Chandigarh, March 21

The State Transport Authority (STA) and the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) has taken a lead in waiving the merchant discount rate (MDR) or transaction fee charged on debit card payment by the banks following the instruction issued by the Finance Department. While these two departments have followed the instructions there are other departments where residents are still being asked to pay the MDR charges.

Some departments like the RLA is yet to start the swipe machine services after the banks started charging the MDR.

The Finance Department had recently issued the direction to all head of the departments to take appropriate steps to bear the merchant discount rate (MDR) or transaction fee charged on debit card payment by the banks like other merchants. The decision of the banks to charge the MDR has hit the drive of the Administration to make Chandigarh cashless as most of the departments have either stopped receiving payments through swipe cards machines or asking the users to pay transaction charges.

The standoff between the banks and the Administration over the MDR has been causing harassment to the public. The people who are visiting departments are not able to make payment through the machines. The RLA has stopped receiving the payment through the machines after December 31, 2016 . Amit Talwar, Director, CTU, said the department was not charging MDR from the public for the swipe card facility.

Rajiv Tiwari, Additional Secretary, STA, said following the instruction they had stopped charging the MDR from public on the swipe card machines and asked the Finance Department to make arrangements for additional budget for the purpose.