[TG SPECIAL]
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Cashless payments are tough,
demanding, costly: Ponda vendors
THE GOAN NETWORK
PONDA: Promoting a cashless society may be a dream of the State and Central government, but vendors and traders in Ponda market have refused to deal with cashless payments citing various difficulties in theory and practice.
Not only are they unhappy that cashless payments are complicated, involve understanding the concept and an additional cost to them, fish, fruit and flower vendors in Ponda are in no mood to accept the gadgets like Point of Sale (PoS) terminals, even if such gadgets are given to them for free.
Shambu Naik, a flower vendor from the main market in Ponda, told The Goan that it was not easy task for them to opt for cashless transactions.
“Most of the time, my elderly mother manages the shop. It will be impossible for her to execute cashless transactions. Card swiping machines may be good, but it would be very difficult for us to use them,” he said.
Santosh Naik, a fish vendor, said he was not aware about the cashless transactions. “I don’t know anything about this new system. If I don’t have money in my hand, how I will buy fish from the wholesale market? They too will have to opt for this system. It is OK if everyone is connected to this network,” he said.
Irfan Sheikh, a vegetable vendor, also cited the practical difficulties that he would have to face, if he were to opt for online cashless transactions.
“It will be difficult for us to manage online cashless transactions. Customers will have to stay in queues if we begin online transactions. This service will take time as customers will have to enter in their details and wait till the transaction is completed. Then, we would have to wait for the slip to maintain record of the transaction. No, such a system is not possible for us,” said Sheikh.
Another fish vendor, Sameer Sheikh, feared that it would be a cumbersome task to manage the swiping machine. “We handle fish with our hands and then we have to operate these swiping machines. Don’t you think that this would be inconvenient for us and time-consuming for our customers,” asked Sheikh.
Sanjay Manu Naik, owner of the oldest general store in Ponda, also feels that this system will be impractical and a time-consuming process. “We will have to employ one person only to handle that work,” he said.
Chelpa Naik, a young entrepreneur and owner of Bhavini Collection, said that though she has a current account with a bank, the process to opt a swiping machine would be tedious. “Some bank officials do not even have knowledge of PoS terminals. Besides, I was told that I would have to pay for this service,” said Naik.
An officer with a nationalized bank, while speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Goan that the vendors opting for PoS terminals would have to pay the agency which supplies the PoS terminals. “They have to pay a monthly rent of around 450 rupees for the wireless machine,” he said.
A jeweller from Ponda informed that government has not waived the fee on transacting with credit cards swiping. “We have to pay a fee for use of this system and this extra cost is then pushed on to our customers. Swiping foreign debit/credit cards invites and even higher fee. If we do not charge customers, we will have to pay this extra fee from our pockets. The government should understand our difficulties,” said the jeweller.
