Government of Odisha, in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of India organized a workshop on “Digital Payment in Government” on 17th July 2017 at Madhusudan Das Regional Academy of Financial Management, Bhubaneswar. The day long workshop was attended by officers of Odisha Financial Service from all over the State including the probationers. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Tuhin Kanta Pandey, IAS, Principal Secretary (Finance), Government of Odisha highlighted the achievements of the State Government in Government Receipts front. He also urged the RBI to consider reducing the merchant discount rate (MDR) or removing it altogether in order to encourage digital payments. Shri Pandey spoke on the connectivity issues faced by remote parts of the State which is acting as a deterrence to spread the digital transactions throughout the State. In his keynote address, Guest of honour, Shri P.K. Pramanik, DDG & SIO(NIC-Odisha), emphasized the establishment of an end to end integrated architecture between Central Government Departments, State Government, RBI and Commercial Banks. He reiterated NIC’s commitment to extend the support for integration of digital payments in providing better citizen services. Shri Pramanik cited the example of PFMS implemented by NIC which has proved extremely useful to the beneficiaries for receiving various subsidies and payments from the Government. Shri Ganesh Kumar, Executive Director, RBI spoke as a resource person in the workshop. He lauded Odisha for its achievements in many of RBI’s digital payment initiatives and discussed on various mechanisms for digital payments such as Credit/ Debit Cards, Net Banking, Mobile Banking, Aadhaar enabled Payment System, UPI, USSD & Micro ATMs as well as security aspects in making digital transactions. Shri Ganesh appreciated NIC’s role in taking forward the digital payments in the Government. Principal Secretary (Finance), Government of Odisha addressing the audience during workshop