WiFi Dues Halts Internet In India's First Cashless Village

by GoNews Desk 4 years ago Views 3829

Wifi Dues Halts Internet In India's First Cashless
After demonetisation, the Palnar village in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district was declared as India's first cashless village, but it is no longer a cashless village as internet services come to a standstill due to non-payment of WiFi dues.

A tribal-dominated village, Palnar was declared as the country’s first cashless village a few days after demonetisation was announced on November 8, 2016.


Since then, this village has completed its journey from non-digital to digital in a fabulous manner but now, internet services are down here.

In shops over here, Point of Sale (POS) machines had been installed for cashless transactions. These machines used to work on Wi-Fi via the internet and payments used to be processed.

However, after this arrangement, which lasted for around three years, internet services have been suspended here due to non-payment of bills. A bill totalling Rs 94,700 for Wi-Fi usage is pending but the village panchayat has not paid it for a long time.

There are close to 432 houses in this village and the total population is around 2,000. From January till April in 2017, the villagers made digital transactions worth Rs 5.5 lakh, amounting to over 60% of total transactions made through the digital medium, which beat metro cities like Mumbai and Delhi, where only 40-45% digital transactions were done.

People in this village have e-wallets and applications through which they conduct digital transactions.

But, with the internet down, cash transactions have begun again in shops over here. Routers installed on poles don’t work and POS machines in shops are gathering dust.

Neither is the Village Panchayat showing any interest in the payment of the internet bill nor are officers of Dantewada district taking any note of it.

Latest Videos

Latest Videos

Facebook Feed