Tripura government on Tuesday launched a cashless payment system for Transport department services across the state and Transport Minister Sushanta Chowdhury virtually inaugurated the cashless services in all eight district’s Transport department offices.

After virtual inauguration of cashless payment systems from the Civil Secretariat, Chowdhury said that the cashless transaction system will bring transparency in the department and it will also increase the state’s revenue with ultimate benefit to the people.

He said that the cashless payment system was started in West Tripura district in August as pilot project in association with State Bank of India (SBI) and gradually the system has been introduced in all district Transport offices for experimental process and on Tuesday, the same system has been officially launched in all district offices of the department after Transport department conducted a case study to see the response over progress of the system.

Now, people will be able to pay their payment for different Transport department’s services through point of sale (POS) machines and UPI transaction method through cashless, said Chowdhury.

He said the transport department had played a vital role in revenue collection in the past few years, adding that the department had contributed Rs 115 crore to the state government’s exchequer in 2022-2023 despite the cash transaction system. The department has fixed a target of a revenue collection of Rs 125 crore in the FY 2023-24.

Sharing details of revenue collection, Choudhury said the department contributed Rs 92.83 crore in 2021-22, Rs 87.93 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 97.14 crore in 2019-20.

The transport department raised Rs 73.87 crore from April till October in 2023-24 and the department is very much hopeful of surpassing Rs 125 crore in the next five months, said Chowdhury and added that all employees are working to make the Transport department one of the highest revenue-generating departments.  Chowdhury also appealed to people to accept the cashless system and popularize the same system.

He said that in this case, the cashless system will play an important role and of all cashless transactions done in the world, over 46 percent are done in India.

The Minister added that after the formation of the Narendra Modi led government in  2014, the cashless and digital transactions gets a new face and now India’s digital transaction is bigger that USA, Britain, Germany and French.

During the launching programme and press meet, the secretary of Transport department UK Chakma, additional secretary Subrata Chaudhury and deputy secretary Maitri Debnath were also present.