HRD Ministry pushes for cash-free campuses

The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) is aiming to make financial transactions completely digital in all higher education institutions. Under this initiative, all public and private institutions including Central and State universities will be fully digitised.
The HRD Ministry is aiming to fully digitise all campus processes including admissions, assessments, result declaration. Moreover, all canteens and business establishments on campus are also encouraged to resort to digital modes using e-wallets by linking the bank accounts with Aadhaar.

Key Facts

‎The higher education regulators like All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grants Commission (UGC) have been taken on board to help facilitate this transition. The HRD Ministry has asked universities to appoint nodal officer for this purpose and send a monthly report to the UGC. ‎The work of developing modules for the internal process is also given to an agency. Under this digitisation initiative, the complete digitisation target will be achieved within six to eight months.

Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA)

The HRD Ministry had launched Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA), a digital financial literacy campaign aimed to actively engage youth and students of Higher Education Institutions to encourage and motivate all payers and payees to use a digitally enabled cashless economic system for transfer of funds.  So far, it has enrolled lakhs of volunteers from among students to train families in their neighbourhood to conduct financial transactions digitally through  BHIM app. They also helped shopkeepers, vendors and merchants’ associations in major markets, talk to shift to digital transactions. Around 2000 higher education institutions were made digital as part of this initiative.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2017