44 E-Mitra kiosks of Udaipur were closed today by the District E-Mitra Society resulting in the mass interruption of bill payments. Confused with the situation, when kiosk owners reached Zila Parishad Office, they came to know about the new regulation of prepaid kiosk management.

Kiosk operator has to create an online bank account and need to transfer the funds in advance to operate the e-Mitra. If the funds decline, the kiosk will be blocked automatically.

According to the e-mitra operator, the action from administration came without prior notice. Secondly, the new law is unacceptable as kiosk owners are not in capacity of depositing thousands of rupees in advance nor they can rush to bank every time their account gets drain.

“If I have limited balance in my account and a customer comes to deposit bill of large amount then I have to refuse him” said a Kiosk operator.

“Going to bank, depositing money and transferring to increase limit will waste hours of time, at the same time then who is going to look after our kiosk.” asked another person.

Madhu Mehta, District Head told the kiosk operators that they have been instructed from higher authority so presently the district administration is not authorized to take any action.

E-Mitra programme was started to generate employment and number of unemployed youth started the service to benefit their families. New prepaid system has raised threat on the employment of kiosk owners.

An E-Mitra owner informed that, “Thousands of people suffered due to sudden discontinuation of the service today. It was the last date of Electricity Bill Payment and was also the date to fill job application for fourth grade employees.”