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demonstrative effect, a village like Palnar would leave on not only the surrounding villages but also
on similar villages throughout the district and lastly 6) The pro- development attitude of the villagers
as well as the field level public representatives, and their fluency in meeting the administration and
keep demanding for new Initiatives in locality, 7) decent number of Jan Dhan accounts in the village
– approximately 50% of population.

Figure 2 Awareness Campaign around
Palnar

After earmarking Palnar, a team was formed consisting of administrative officers, bankers, technical
officials and some well-established villagers from Palnar, to counsel the shops and villagers, and to
explain them the benefits of going cashless, which was an instant hit extracting positive response. The
District Collector chaired multiple meetings thereafter in Palnar to identify the hurdles for initiating
digital payments and the possible means of eliminating them. Bankers and technical officials have
especially been shouldered the responsibility of not only spreading awareness among the Customers
and traders of Palnar but also to prepare them to go cashless. Scope of awareness campaigns spread to
periphery of Palnar, to cover the villagers of all the surrounding 20 villages who form the strong trade
base of Palnar. Assistance of the public representatives and community heads has been invariantly
taken during the campaign and it is ensured that they take lead in explaining people in their own
tongue about the means and benefits of digital payments, as it would rope in the villagers more
convincingly.

While continuing the awareness campaigns, our team of experts has listed out the hurdles/
challenges in realising the task of making Palnar cashless enabled village and drew our attention to
resolve them on priority. The Palnar was lacking in cellular data services which is an essential
component for a digital transaction to happen. Village is partially covered with mobile Network,
BSNL and Airtel as service providers. Coverage of mobile Network is so poor that people are forced

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