LUDHIANA WINS “FASTEST GROWING SMART CITY IN DIGITAL PAYMENTS” AWARD

AWARD PRESENTED BY UNION MINISTER HARDEEP PURI IN DELHI TODAY MC LUDHIANA HAS SET A TARGET OF ACHIEVING COMPLETE ONLINE BILLING & ATLEAST 75% OF ITS REVENUE DIGITALLY BY END OF FINANCIAL YEAR: SANYAM AGGARWAL Ludhiana, February 26, 2019: As a part of its mission to boost Digital India campaign, the Government of India had launched a competition among 100 smart cities (from July 1, 2018 to October 31, 2018) to promote digitisation of municipal services such as facilitating citizens for paying municipal taxes through digital means (netbanking/mobile app/ bhim/UPI/credit/debit cards), digitisation of municipal markets, promoting awareness among citizens about the digital payment methods etc. A live dashboard was set up for monitoring the progress of the cities wherein weekly digital collection figures were uploaded by the cities and was directly monitored by the Prime Minister Office (PMO). Municipal Corporation Ludhiana won the award for Fastest Growing Smart City in Digital Payments among the million plus category (cities with population greater than 10 lakh). This award was presented by Union Minister Mr Hardeep Puri to Mr Sanyam Aggarwal, CEO, Ludhiana Smart City Limited at 2nd Smart Cities CEOs Conference being organized by MoHUA in Delhi today. Mr Sanyam Aggarwal informed that a number of proactive steps were taken by MC Ludhiana which led to marked improvement in digital receipts and saw digital collection rising to almost 40% of total revenue collection. As a first step, all vendor payments/third party payments were stopped using cheques and are made only through netbanking. He further informed that a monthly lucky draw scheme was launched for digital taxpayers where citizens paying digitally were given attractive prizes/ appreciation letters. To target the youth as future citizens, presentations were given in schools and colleges to create awareness about municipal services in general and various digital payments interfaces available for tax payers in particular. MC Ludhiana successfully enrolled on the BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System) platform for water billers. POS machines were introduced at all points of contact for convenience of citizens. E Billing has been started and already 5000+ citizens have consented for billing only through sms/email saving paper and administrative costs. Smart transport card has been launched to use the Municipal transport services and is now being integrated with the rest of the municipal services. He claimed that MC Ludhiana has now set a target of achieving complete online billing and at least 75% of its revenue digitally by end of this financial year.