Feature
Banking services in rural areas through post offices: Centre
Agartala: The central government is committed to provide banking services in rural areas through modern post offices where facilities like ATM, pension account and core banking will be made available, union Communication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said here on Sunday.
He said by next month post offices across the country would likely start payment transactions like banks.
“With the approval of Reserve Bank of India, the payment transactions would be initiated by the post offices from August,” he said after inaugurating the core banking services (CBS) in the Agartala head post offices.
Prasad said the government was committed to provide banking services through modern post offices in rural areas.
The department of posts has a network of around 155,000 post offices in India, out of which, 120,000 are in rural areas.
“In the last one year, 2,590 post offices across the country have been migrated to CBS platform to transmit the money anywhere in India in less than a minute,” Prasad said.
“During this period, 115 ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) under the postal department have been set up in different parts of the country and several hundred ATMs would be established in the coming months.”
The minister said: “To boost the e-commerce, the post offices have taken steps to increase the quick delivery of various goods booked by people electronically using various online retailers.”
“During the last one year, the delivery of post offices across the country has been increased by 37 percent, earning revenue of Rs.500 crore.”
He said to make the digital India programme of the government successful, over 60,000 villages would be linked with the Apollo Hospitals through Optical Fibre Network to provide medical advises to the people of these villages.
Prasad said: “At present, India with a population of 125 crore has 98 crore mobile phone subscribers and 30 crore internet connections.”
“The number of mobile phone users would go to 100 crore within this year and we would increase the internet connections to 50 crore in two years.”
Chief Post Master General (Northeast circle) Smita Kumari said India Post was aiming to transform the department of post into a technology enabled and self-reliant market leader.
“Of the total of 155,000 post offices in the country, the northeast region has 2,920. India Post would also soon launch eight ATMs in the region…,” she said.
Tripura Information Technology Minister Tapan Chakraborty said post offices must be strengthened in the northeast by filling up vacant posts and setting up more post offices in the rural areas.
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.
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