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(Project
Coordinator : Shri. K. R. Ganapathy, Dr. Ashutosh Saxena & Shri. Aditya
Gaiha)
In the 80s, our country witnessed the introduction of credit cards as a substitute for cash. Since then, the Card Industry has grown by leaps and bounds and has offered various utilities to the cardholders. The Saraf Committee, set up in 1994 by the Reserve Bank of India to look into the issues related to Payment Systems suggested Smart Card technology as one of the options meriting close observation.
It was felt that an experimental deployment of Smart Card technology would provide valuable feedback for future absorption and widespread usage of technology by the nation. A core group comprising of Reserve Bank of India, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) and IIT, Mumbai was formed to frame the modalities for implementing a Smart Card pilot project named “SMARS” (SMArt Rupees System) at IIT, Mumbai. The pilot testing was launched on 3rd December 1998. From the observations and issues identified during the pilot run, inferences were drawn to formulate the standards prescribed.
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