IT department fixes glitch, moves payment platform to cloud

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As visuals of the flood-hit regions started spreading, people across the globe began expressing their willingness to contribute to the chief minister’s distress relief fund (CMDRF). But, a technical glitch that occurred in the payment gateway a couple of days ago had created some confusions regarding the transfer of money.

However, the state IT department rectified the glitches within hours and made the site ready to accept oversees transactions.

“The site was down two days ago. It was shifted to cloud and now the issue has been sorted out. Also, since we were not much into oversees transactions, the option to accept international credit cards was not included. That feature too has been added now,” said IT secretary M Sivasankar. He added that foreign nationals can contribute any amount of money to the relief fund.

The online platform has been functioning well after the corrections and till Tuesday evening, Rs 112 crores have been received as online donation. Of this, Rs 73.32 crores were received through credit/debit card payments with 2.62 lakh people utilizing the facility in the last eight days.

This means the 2,462 people had used the gateway every hour in the last week. The CMDRF, meanwhile, received Rs 35 crores through Paytm and Rs 4 crore through other bank UPIs.

The payments can be made through www.kerala.gov.in, www.cmo.kerala.gov.in, www.donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in and www.keralarescue.in.

There is a virtual payment address (VPA) keralacmdrf@sbi. Through app such as Paytm, UPI, BHIM, Tez, Phonepe, payments can be made by typing keralacmdrf@sbi in the credit to /VPA to / beneficiary column. Also, payments can be made through these apps using a QR code which is available in the websites such as kerala.gov.in, cmo.kerala.gov.in and cmdrf.kerala.gov.in.

For queries, BSNL subscribers can contact 155300 or 0471 155300. Other network users can contact 0471 2115054/2115098.

Star Group contributes ?5 crore

Star India Group increased its announced contribution to CMDRF from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore. A cheque of Rs 5 crore was handed over to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan by K Madhavan, MD-South, Star India.

“Seeing the scale of the disaster, Star India and its employees decided to increase the donation along with its parent company, 21st Century Fox. Star India along with contributions of employees of Star India Network parent company 21st Century Fox, have donated a cumulative sum of Rs 5 crores to CMDRF,” said a press note issued on Tuesday.