Private sector lender Yes Bank has partnered with Government of Maharashtra to onboard PDS shops which are popularly referred to as ration shops onto the electronic PDS initiative through which they can become agents of the bank.
Under the partnership, Yes Bank will empower more than 20,000 ration shops which can offer last mile basic banking services to more than seven lakh beneficiaries. The bank will cover almost 40% of all the PDS shops across locations like Palghar, thane, Kolhapur, Latur, Pune and others.
Customers at these shops will be able to make payments using Aadhaar Pay, small value cash deposit or withdraw cash using AePS (Aadhaar enabled Payment Systems), bill payments recharges and even undertake remittance activities across different bank branches.
“The pioneering ePDS digital initiative has helped us eliminate more than 10 lakh bogus ration cards in Maharashtra and made the inventory management for government and shop owners fully digital. ePDS initiative will also significantly boost the livelihood of shop owners by giving them additional revenue through the various services they can now offer to the citizens,” said Girish Bapat, cabinet minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection, Food and Drugs Administration, Parliamentary Affairs, Government of Maharashtra.
The government is hoping to get Jan Dhan account holders to use this service for all their financial requirements.
“The Bank remains committed to improving last mile inclusion and translating financial access into enhanced convenience & usage for smoother delivery of Government to Citizen (G2C) services through simple digital solutions,” said Ritesh Pai, chief digital officer, Yes Bank.
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