Essar township in Gujarat goes totally cashless

Essar said that the milestone was achieved by its Nand Niketan Township through the use of The Mobile Wallet (TMW), a Mumbai-based financial technology company.

Ralph Sunil, VP-Administration & CSR, Essar Steel said, “All Essar employees now get a nominal part of their salary as a credit into their TMW wallets. The collector’s office in Surat has personally appreciated our efforts in making digital payments a way of life in the Township.”

The Wallet is powered by RBL Bank Ltd.

TMW single-handedly worked on this project and converted Essar’s Nand Niketan Township into a cashless township.

The pilot project involved the adoption of TMW’s twin offering—the smartphone-based TMW app and the Mastercard-enabled TMW and RBL Bank co-branded Prepaid Card, which, according to the company, has almost universal acceptance at all outlets and billers that accept Mastercard in India.

Said Rishi Kalantri, Head–Cashless Townships, TMW, “We started the pilot project at Hazira in December 2016—almost immediately after the PM launched the demonetisation drive. In the initial phase, we conducted a series of workshops for various user groups, with an eye on addressing their unique requirements. This helped in easing the adoption process and made the transition to a cashless ecosystem sustainable.”

While the TMW app has had more than 12,000 downloads, over 8,000 TMW-RBL Bank Prepaid cards have been issued to a wide range of users in Surat, including Essar employees and their families residing in the Hazira Township, merchants and shop owners operating within its precincts, as well as contract labourers working in various Essar facilities.

An average of  Rs 2 lakh worth of digital transactions are being executed every day, the company said.

Image: Essar Twitter