These Two Places In India Are Already Living PM Modi's Dream Of Cashless Economy

Have you imagined a village in India where you do not need cash to buy things? Where every payment, whether for a cup of tea - a cigarette or a packet of salt - is done through mobile payment system?

BCCL

At a time when long queues outside banks and ATMs are a common site almost everywhere across the country following demonetisation, two places have realised the dream of a cashless economy, which is free from everyday currency hassles.
These places are Auroville, an experimental township in Viluppuram district of Tamil Nadu, and Akodara 每 a small village of around 1,200 people in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat. People here have made cashless transaction a part of their life and therefore, you do not need a single penny to transact here.
It is worth mentioning that the economy of both the places did not turn cashless after the government scrapped higher currency notes on November 8.

ALSO READ: This New Year Goa Aims To Become India＊s First 100% Cashless State Using Mobile Payments

BCCL/Representational Image

Auroville 每 150 km from Chennai and 10 km from Puducherry 每 turned cashless 30 years back in 1986 when there was no existence of Rs 500 notes in India.
On the other hand, Akodara 每 located some 90 km from Ahmedabad 每 adopted largely cashless economy in April 2015.

How cashless transactions came into existence at both places

The premise behind encouraging this cashless existence in Auroville (http://www.auroville.org/) is based on the teachings of Mirra Alfassa, born in France, who was named The Mother after she took over the charge of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

akodara

She had envisaged that money would not be used in Auroville. The Financial Service/Auroville Maintenance Fund 每 which works as per the guidelines of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) 每 was started in here in 1985-86 as an attempt to do away with circulation paper and coin currency.

Residents are given account numbers to connect to their central account. Nearly all internal transactions between units and Aurovilians are done through electronic transfers using these accounts.

People can purchase from around 200 Auroville＊s commercial centres and other shops using their account number. Visitors, however, are requested to get a temporary account and an Aurocard (a debit card).

Auroville wants to be a universal town where 50,000 men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, politics and nationalities.

akodara

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated to the nation its first ※digital village§ in January 2015, Akodara became a virtually cashless economy. It was adopted and developed by the ICICI Foundation as a digitised village with a rural branch of the bank. Even least educated person here was trained to use mobile payment system.

Most of the transactions between Rs 10 and Rs 5,000 are done via SMS. The payment goes directly into the shopkeeper＊s bank account as the buyer and seller are both connected through their accounts in the same bank.

The village even has its own website (http://akodara-digitalvillage.in). Its wi-fi with high speed broadband connectivity has some 50 subscribers across 200-odd households. The internet facility also enables farmers to access the latest price of agricultural commodities on NCDEX, with the bank acting as a hub for business activity.

auroville

People go to the ICICI Bank branch in the village mainly to deposit or exchange demonetised notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations. Usually, they do not usually draw money even from ATM as they all carry e-wallets in their smartphones. They need cash mainly to transact business outside their digital village.

ICICI Bank has developed a dedicated and customised SMS banking platform and software for the village to enable users to do four basic banking transactions in English and Gujarati 〞 balance inquiry, mini-statement, fund transfer and prepaid mobile phone charges.

A customer only needs to send an SMS in a simplified format to initiate a transaction and he receives a completion response likewise.

The bank has also developed a micro-ATM-based solution to facilitate the local mandi commission agents to make payments to farmers for their produce.