Demonetisation impact: NIMHANS swipes Rs 40 lakh in November!

Bengaluru: Demonetisation has had its positive effect on the patients walking in at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) at least.

In October, the hospital’s already installed three cashless swipe card machines had a collection of only Rs 45,000, but after the demonetisation announcement on November 8, cashless collections have touched Rs 40 lakh, or a whopping 100-fold jump.

“In December, our collections touched Rs 60 lakh which is huge and unexpected. People have found their own ways to shift to other alternatives,” says Dr B.N. Gangadhar, Director Nimhans. Because of this huge inflow, the institute has expanded the cashless swipe card machines services at the outpatient department.

The institute approached various banks and finally zeroed in on Canara Bank, which is taking zero charges for the collection.

“This activity, undertaken in collaboration with Canara Bank, has been initiated in 10 different locations within Nimhans and will assist patients and their attendants in ease of payments,” he says. “Over time, we are planning to go completely cashless at Nimhans.”

He says, “Just after demonetisation was announced, we were unable to get the machines as all were sucked out of the market. Then Canara Bank came forward and we made it clear to the bank officials that since it is a government hospital, we have to make transactions free for the public, and they agreed.”

Swipe machines have been placed at various counters.  “There is one at the emergency casualty department as well. However, the institute also continues to collect cash. Most of our patients are old school and all of them cannot let go of this practise. But what we are seeing is there will soon be a shift to cashless payments,” he says.