Lakshadweep to soon go cashless: Administrator Farooq Khan    

"Because of communication problems, we have certain issues. But the government of India is attending to those issues," Union Territory Administrator Farooq Khan said.

Minicoy, Dec 29: The Lakshadweep islands will soon become a 100 per cent cashless society as part of the Centre's Digital India initiative, the Union Territory Administrator Farooq Khan said here.

He also said, steps are underway to achieve this goal and they are hopeful of reaching it soon. "Because of communication problems, we have certain issues. But the government of India is attending to those issues," he told reporters here on the sidelines of the valedictory of two-day national Minicoy festival last evening.

"Very soon all the shops in the islands would have digital money transaction facilities. Other mechanisms like USST are also being ensured now," he said. Our UT will soon become a 100 per cent cashless society, he added. On the impact of demonetisation, he said the move had caused no difficulties to the islands and had not triggered any panic among the locals.

"Our officers were upto the task of taking the challenge head on. They were able to manage the situation in a manner that there were no long queues seen before ATMs... banks functioned absolutely normally.. and no point of any shortage of money was reported from any side," the administrator said. Senior central government observers were also here to monitor the situation.

"We have ensured that people keep on getting what they are legally authorised to get from the banks," Khan said. "By and large, we had an absolute smooth transition after demonetisation," he added.

PTI