Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Communications & Information Technology

18-May-2011 13:11 IST

Common Services Centres: Front end Service Delivery Mechanism of Rural India of Proposed one lakh, More than 94000 already rolled out over 12.5 Thousand Located in Naxal Affected Areas

Of proposed one lakh, over 94,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) have already been rolled out in 31 States/UTs so far in an endeavor to take Information Communication Technology (ICT) to the remotest part of the country. 12,510 of these are located in the naxal affected areas of 11 States. Ten States including Gujarat, Kerala, Sikkim, Tripura, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Manipur, Chandigarh, Goa and Delhi have completed 100% roll out. Under the Scheme, connectivity has been provided to 67,883 CSCs by April 2011. Department of Information Technology (DIT) has also developed an Online Monitoring Tool for monitoring the uptime of the CSCs. It is possible to monitor real time performance of the CSCs through this tool.

This has been achieved in spite of the challenges regarding availability of power supply and connectivity in the rural areas of the country. The roll out is found to be a bit slow in the difficult and naxal affected areas where setting up of CSCs is quite challenging. The scheme is though moving closer to achieve the target of 100,000 CSCs. The roll out of CSCs has in some cases been also delayed on account of delay in selection of new Service Centre Agencies (SCA’s) in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh & Karnataka. This was primarily because contracts of two SCAs were terminated by respective State Governments on account of poor performance.

However, in order to ensure availability of connectivity to all CSCs, DIT is supporting BSNL to provide Wireline and WiMax based broadband connectivity to all 100,000 CSCs. So far around 40,000 CSCs have had connectivity through BSNL. In the North East and difficult areas, DIT is providing VSAT based connectivity with the help of NIC.

The CSC Scheme is the largest tele centre project across the world and the success of the Scheme is largely dependent, in the long run, on the success and entrepreneurial skills of the village level entrepreneurs (VLEs). DIT has proposed special schemes to add value not only to the CSC portfolio of services but will also help in creating a more inclusive and informed society. A paradigm-shift in the manner in which Government services are delivered to the citizens has begun to sink into common mindset.

With an objective of creating an environment of transparent, responsive and accountable good Governance, the Government of India is implementing the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) which envisages to create the core IT infrastructure in the form of State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), State Data Centres (SDC) and one lakh Common Service Centres (CSC) across the country which will be used to deliver public services to the citizens. NeGP also includes implementation of 27 Mission Mode Projects across various Central and State Government Departments and Ministries which will help not only computerize the back office operations and records of these Departments but also improve delivery of public services.

Approved in 2006 as a part of the National e-Governance Plan, the Common Services Centres are primarily the physical front-end of the service delivery mechanism. Envisaged to deliver web-enabled anytime, anywhere access to information and services across the country, over one lakh internet enabled service centres covering 6 lakh villages in the country means one CSC in every six villages.

The CSC Scheme is not just about rolling out IT infrastructure but to build a network of 100,000+ rural businesses across India. The project is being implemented on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model with a three tier implementation framework, in which the State Designated Agency (SDA) enters into a Master Service Agreement (MSA) with the Service Centre Agency (SCA) which appoints the Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) to operate the CSCs. The CSC project is being implemented at a cost of Rs 1649 crores with a substantial investment from the private sector.

To make more services available to CSCs, DIT is also implementing the State Portals, SDDG and e-Forms projects which will help increase the number of transactions at CSCs resulting in improved viability and sustainability. The implementation of the e-District project in all districts of the country will also lead to the availability of all high volume services at the District and sub district level through the CSCs.

SP/AT

Common Service Centres expansion enables rural public service delivery via PPP, multi-technology connectivity and real-time monitoring. The Common Service Centres initiative under the National e-Governance Plan establishes one lakh internet-enabled rural front-end centres implemented via a PPP three-tier framework-State Designated Agencies contracting Service Centre Agencies which appoint Village Level Entrepreneurs-to deliver web-enabled public services, supported by SWAN/SDC infrastructure, multi-technology connectivity provision, an Online Monitoring Tool for uptime, and complementary projects (state portals, e-Forms, e-District) to improve transaction volumes and sustainability.