CAN awards e-Sewa, IT professional

Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) awarded two individuals and an organisation for their contribution to the field of information communication technology (ICT).
It conferred the Best User in the Private Sector Award to e-Sewa — an online payment service provider that facilitates online transactions like utility payments even without bank accounts — for effectively using ICT applications
Likewise, ICT Business Excellence Award was conferred on chief election commissioner Nil Kantha Uprety and president of electronic equipment maker Beltronix Nepal Bijaya Krishna Shrestha.
Chief secretary Leela Mani Poudyal handed over the awards yesterday evening to the winners.
"ICT professionals should focus on optimum utilisation of available resources to bring a positive impact in the IT sector's development," said CAN president Binod Dhakal.

e-Sewa starts e-Sewa Zone

e-Sewa has launched e-Sewa Zone with increased facilities for the consumers.
"After implementing the new system e-Sewa’s users can use the service without having any bank accounts," said F1 Soft International — the promoter of e-Sewa and Fonepay — chief executive Biswas Dhakal.
"People can either use mobile or internet to send or receive money to anyone; pay electricity, water or telephone bills, top-up balance in their mobile, pay internet bills, buy airplane tickets, deposit credit card amount, pay college or school fees or can shop," he added.
Users needed bank account earlier to use these services but now under e-Sewa Zone users no longer require any bank account, said director of Fonepay Asgar Ali, on the occasion.
"For this, company is expanding its agent’s network," he said, adding that the company has setup three super agents in Kathmandu and hundred agents nationwide, in first phase. "Within the next two months the company is planning to increase its super agents from three to ten in Kathmandu and one hundred to 1,000 agents nationwide."
The company is planning a minimum of three agents in one district before expanding its network further.
e-Sewa’s agents will do the customer registration and provide top-up facility to its existing users. Agents will get Rs 20 for every new customer registration but for that customers have to pay some amount.
“The amount will be given to agents by the company," Ali said. "Agents will use their own bank account to top-up the amount of registered e-Sewa users. The amount from agent’s bank account is transferred to the users account in e-Sewa and the users can spend the amount via e-Sewa."
Along with expanding its network e-Sewa is also planning to expand its merchants, who will install credit service machine. The company will pay Rs 500 to agents, who will promote to increase the number of merchants, where e-Sewa users can shop and transfer their amount for payment.
"We are trying to implement a system, were customers can shop and pay without even carrying cash," Dhakal said, adding that in digital payment, e-Sewa’s effective presence and popularity among the users has made it successful.