Saral Kendra faces public backlash over initiation of online payments

Residents visiting Saral Kendra at the Mini Secretariat here are facing several difficulties. Recently, confusion over new collector rates led to six-day delay for land registries. While the new rates were supposed to be effective from December 1, the registration of land began on December 6.

Now, the Saral Kendra has initiated an online payment system for services, which troubling many residents. On Monday, several people struggled to make payments because they did not have access to online payment methods.

The Saral Kendra offers 650 services, with over 30 key services including obtaining driving licences, land documents and domicile certificates. The shift to cashless payments has made it harder for the people to avail important services. Visitors are urging the authorities concerned to allow both cash and online payments to make the process smoother.

Deepak, a farmer from Khai Shergarh village, struggled for two hours because he uses a basic keypad cellphone and could not make online payment for availing service at the kendra. He said, “If someone doesn’t have online payment options, why can’t he/she pay in cash for availing service at the kendra?”

Senior Advocate Prabhudayal, who also faced the same issue, was disappointed when he was turned away despite having cash for his transaction. Property dealer Kamal Bansal pointed out that the Deputy Commissioner had previously ordered the acceptance of both cash and online payments. He said, “If we can’t use our country’s currency for official work here, where can we do so?”

A Saral Kendra employee explained that they received orders to accept cash from Monday. He said one counter at the kendra had been set up for this purpose. However, other counters continue to accept online payments only, leaving many visitors frustrated.

An employee from the Accounts Department confirmed that verbal instructions were given to accept offline payments from those persons who were unable to pay online. He assured that cash payments were now being accepted at the kendra.

Meanwhile, another Saral Kendra employee, speaking anonymously, said they were instructed to accept cash and transfer it online from their own account to the government account. The employee expressed concerns over issues which they could face while filing their own income tax return as they were drawing only Rs 22,000 as salary.