By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar. March 13, 2017 : Odisha has began test trials to make eight more villages cashless villages. The identified villages are in the districts of Cuttack, Balasore, Nayagarh, Rayagada, Sambalpur and Deogarh.

The state government on December last year had officially declared Nuagaon with a population of over 1,000 in Puri district as its first cashless village. The villagers have started using debit cards and credit cards for buying goods and other transactions. Even, daily wages are being paid digitally. All the villagers have been equipped with e-wallets and plastic cards.

The Odisha Livelihoods Mission has been designated the nodal agency in helping the villages to shift to digital transactions.

Official sources said Banks have played a key role in scripting the transformation from cash to cashless.

Awareness programmes jointly with the banks to do the transactions using less cash and motivating the SHG (self help groups) members to transact on digital platforms are key moves by the state government to convert villages to cashless, an official said adding that depending on the success of the trials, there will be attempts to make whole of Odisha cashless.