Contactless payment on cards in New Town

Kolkata: New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) is making a comprehensive plan to go ahead with contactless payment in New Town.

A webinar on Accelerating the contactless payment ecosystem in New Town, Kolkata was held on Friday.

From NKDA and Housing infrastructure Development Corporation are contemplating to ban acceptance of cash in paying of fees for trade licence, plan sanction, mutation and water connection. Similarly paying of fees for booking of football/Cricket stadiums, banquet halls, ceremony lawns, picnic spots in Eco Park, Swapna Bhor, Business Club, Eco Urban Village, playing fees in Business Club and Golf Arena, rental of shops etc will be banned. From Cafe Ekante, contactless ordering will be tried out. In collection of car parking fees, contactless FasTAG-like methodolgy has been proposed. Markets and street-side food stalls would also be focussed to various FinTech players for increased adoption. We plan to involve banks to bring "O2O" (Offline-to-Online) options of eCommerce to isolated and stand-alone Kirana shops.

NKDA will launch a massive campaign to create awareness between buyers and sellers in markets. Debashis Sen, chairman of NKDA said the steps will be implemented in

phases and it will take time to get people acquainted with the new system.