Delhi firm in talks with govt to digitise NREGA payments

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Chandigarh: After launching its mobile payment system Beam, Delhi-based Suvidha Starnet is in talks with the central government for facilitating payments towards National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in three states. Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh are likely to be the three states where the project will be flagged off. Confirming this Anand Shrivastav, chairman and managing director, Beam, told FE that the company is evaluating the problems and prospects and thrashing out the details.

“We may take up the pilot in Uttar Pradesh and then replicate the same in other two states,” he said. “The payments will be made to the affected people via our Beam payment service. Since Andhra Pradesh is leading in the implementation of NREGA we hope things will fall in line easily but UP and Rajasthan will be challenging.”

Beam, which has 3.5 lakh transacting subscribers, is present in 12 states and covers national capital region, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Agra, Kanpur, Varanasi, Bhopal, Indore, Dehradun, Patna, Ranchi and Raipur, among others. The payment service, which allows subscribers to transact using their mobiles or landline phones, has recently extended its operations in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. The service enables unbanked India to shop, recharge mobile phones/DTH, pay utility bills, send gift payments to each other, buy air tickets etc using short message services, voice calls or internet.