India develops online payment system for consumer subsidies

The finance ministry has developed an e-payment system for direct credit of subsidies to the accounts of consumers of fertiliser, kerosene and cooking gas.
    
The system, developed by the controller general of accounts (CGA) of the department of expenditure, is a fully secured e-payment system for direct credit of dues from the government to the accounts of beneficiaries.

The system will operate through the 'government e-payment gateway' (GePG) using the digitally signed electronic advice (e-advice).

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will inaugurate the government e-payment system on Monday.

The government e-payment gateway (GePG) is a portal, which enables delivery of payment services from pay and accounts offices (PAOs) for online payment into beneficiaries' accounts in a seamless manner under a secured environment.

GePG serves as middleware between computerised payment and accounts (COMPACT) application at the pay and accounts offices and the core banking solution (CBS) of the agency banks/RBI to facilitate paperless transaction, reducing overall transaction cost and promoting green banking.

"This system will bring transparency and expedite direct payments from central paying units relating to subsidies to the users and consumers of fertiliser, kerosene and cooking gas, which is already a declared objective of the government," an official release said today.

The digitally signed e-advices uploaded by the PAOs on GePG portal are downloaded by the concerned banks to credit the beneficiaries' accounts through CBS, NEFT or RTGS.

The e-payment system will save time and efforts and facilitate elimination of physical cheques and their manual processing. The system will also have online reconciliation of transactions and efficient compilation of payment accounts.