panaji chief minister manohar parrikars prolonged absence due to his illhealth has started taking a toll on some of the key policies that are either shelved or put on the back burner with his pet project of making all financial transactions of the state government cashless remaining just an idea the initiative was expected to start from parrikars constituency panaji under the aegis of the smart city mission imagine panaji smart city development limited ipscdl had drawn up ambitious plans to provide around 60000 prepaid goa universal smart cards for digital payments in the capitalbut four months have passed since the goa universal smart card system was meant to be launched and the state government is two months behind parrikars deadline for cashless governanceno one else has vision like manohar parrikarit was in january this year while speaking at the state credit seminar 201819 organised by the national bank for agriculture and rural development nabard parrikar said the state government would go cashless by september 30less cash means less corruption and less evil which leads to increase in state income and decrease in taxation parrikar had explainedif successful the system was meant to be replicated across the statethis is a panaji specific project and there are complexities involved in implementing such a comprehensive scheme said ipscdl chief executive officer and managing director swayandipta pal chaudhuri we are ready with the cards and we can supply them but we have to get the vendors onboard and these include government departmentsand that is where parrikars absence is felt most in his absence there is none who has the initiative or the vision to implement the policies and put things in place a senior official saidipscdl had partnered with hdfc bank to implement the digital initiative which would see dedicated pointofsale pos devices being given to government departmentsthe smart card was designed for payments in government departments like pwd electricity or corporation of the city of panaji and even for transportchaudhuri said the smart city mission directorate was conducting active consultations with all stakeholders we have had active consultation with goa tourism development corporation and kadamba transport corporation and it is already in the process to get them onboard this system will be rolled out in the new year chaudhuri said