This DU college goes Cashless ;digital payments can be done with it’s smart ID cards !

Colleges and universities employ student identification cards to foster a safe learning environment, often combining access control, identification and transactional applications into one card for flexibility and convenience. Smart card systems makes it easy and affordable to integrate new ID card technologies that make campus life more efficient for everyone.

The cards of Lakshmibai college have been colour coded to signify the students’ year. The first year students have purple-and-white cards, the second year students have blue-and-white cards, and the third year students have maroon-and-white cards. Students holding positions in college societies have Tricolour bands on their cards.

The Lakshmibai College, Delhi university goes digital to beat currency distresses.

At the time of the acute cash crunch following demonetization, the Lakshmibai college of Delhi University in the month of September came up to the salvage of its students by providing them with special identity cards, having Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips attached to them, and which can be used as debit cards to make payments within the college. This is the first time that a college of the Delhi University has come up with such an idea of the icards being plastic money. These cards can be used for payments in the college canteens, library, for fee submission, library dues and fines and even for Photostats. Students need not stand in the canteen queue, rather they can just swipe their icards and take whatever eatables or drinks , they want. The books are issued on which date, time, days, fines, no. of books issued etc. can be known and it just takes a swipe of the card. Students are very happy with their new card as this card proved big help now when there was a huge cash problem in the country. These ID cards are very convenient as there is no need to carry cash anymore for campus expenses. Moreover students  don’t even have to worry about cash getting stolen with the new ID cards.

The another important fact about this I-card is that softcopy of the details of identity card is available at the backend in the college for providing messages at home like short attendance , reminder of tests etc. which would prove helpful for the parents of the students and therby being pretty good for the students future. This smart id card is effective only on the campus and can be reported and blocked in case it is stolen or lost.Lastly and most importantly the college has a tie-up with Bank of India and students can get their cards recharged in the bank branch inside the college itself.
The card, which is valid for a year, can be reactivated by the bank by transferring the money in the previous card to the new one. Moreover, now students can recharge their card online also. Hence digital and financial literacy played an important role in Lakshmibai college.

Many other DU colleges are now going digital by opting for mobile commerce platforms and e-wallet services . Meanwhile, some students complained they are not aware of the card at all. They say that they recharged the card last week, but  don’t know how to use it. Some students say it can be  recharged by mobile phones and like metro cards, but some students don’t know. So , now the college union is  taking much efforts to make it popular and effective amongst the students.

The union is organising an awareness session on how to use these smart cards at the beginning of the next session. “Lots of students still don’t know how to use the cards. So, they are planning to have some awareness sessions in January next year.Many other DU colleges are now going digital by opting for mobile commerce platforms and e-wallet services.

Registering the success of these smart I-Cards, other DU colleges are also planning to implement the idea soon. The Principals of other colleges said that they are also planning to implement such cards and go cashless. Some also said that they might also include students’ medical history on the chip.

The move is also expected to streamline university processes and meet voter identification . As it turns out, it was a pretty good move for efficient running of the college and in the coming days this I-card might be accessible and usable all around market except only in the college campus.

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *