Representational Pic
Nagpur: Influenced by the country’s Prime minsiter to go cashless many ‘patriotic’ and ‘nationalistic’ ( adjectives used selectively these days for people who are pro-govt.) are turning to credit cards for payments they normally made by cash – and paying more in the process unmindful of it.
A man books a 3rd A/C ticket on a Delhi Patna train for instance by credit card; he pays 1316/ for it. If he had bought it at a railway counter paying cash he would have paid only Rs.1290/ i.e. Rs. 26/ less.
Dangal movie is running to full houses – most tickets are naturally being bought by card; who has that much cash these days to purchase the already costly multiplex tickets?
You know the difference you end up paying? Rs. 309/ per ticket instead of Rs. 275/ !!
Forget luxuries like travel and watching movies; consider something many middle class Indians do to secure their future, pay money into their pension funds.
If Mr. Sharma had paid Rs. 5000/ through any NPS centre, he would have paid just that – 5000. When he pays by card the outgo is Rs. 5057/.
Why the difference?
A sum total of Transaction charge, service charge, service tax, Swatcha Bharat cess and Krishi Kalyan cess.
This is in the scenario when government has decided to waive off service tax till Dec. end.
Who is benefited?
All credit cards in use in India are only through two gateways – Visa and Mastercard. They are both American companies.
So every time we use a SBI card, an ICICI card, a Bob card or any other ‘nationalized’ bank card – you end up paying 2% to these two American companies.
No matter what many Indians feel about demonetization and idea of going cashless, we bet Trump is very happy with the situation!!!
