Rolling out Common Service Centres in Indian States

Created By: rumi on 10-Apr-2007 12:00 AM

As a part of the National eGovernance plan to bring electronic services to villages, India is all set to roll out the common service centres in the various states in India. The government has already called for competitive bids in the most of the states, inviting private sector firms to come forward to set up the service centres in the states. Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd, a non-banking financial institution, has won a tender to set up Internet kiosks in rural West Bengal to provide basic services such as filing land returns, registering births and deaths, and checking the weather pattern.

SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd and the West Bengal government has entered into a Master Service Agreement to set up 4,937 common service centres (CSCs) in rural Bengal. The program has been drawn up under the aegis of the increasingly popular public-private partnership (PPP) mode.The agreement was signed between the Company and the Government of West Bengal, Panchayat and Rural Development Department on April 05, 2007, encompasses 14 districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakhin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia and South 24 Parganas, Purba Midnapore, Bankura, Birbhum, Howrah and Hooghly.

The initiative envisages setting up one CSC for each cluster of six villages with one being set up within each Gram Panchayat ( village developmnet body) and Panchayat Samiti ( village developmnet body) office premises. Such CSCs will be known as ‘Sahaj Tathya Mitra’ and will be set up with Internet connectivity and will offer e-Governance Services and other commercial services to the rural populace.

The Company will manage these CSCs in collaboration with Wipro Infotech Ltd. While Wipro will be responsible for the technological inputs, the Company will chalk out the various services these CSCs will provide to the rural masses.

Women entrepreneurs identified from self-help groups in the village will man the centres. Srei will train them and maintain the centres that will also provide commercial and general information such as commodity prices and booking of railway tickets. Besides, the centres will include modules of e-learning.

This initiative is similar to the e-Chaupal project that ITC Ltd, India’s biggest tobacco company, launched in Madhya Pradesh.Rural retailing and providing Internet access to villagers is catching up with companies as 60% of the country’s 1.1 billion population still lives in rural areas. Companies ranging from ITC to DCM Shriram Consolidated Ltd have set up rural information kiosks and shops and plan to aggressively expand these services and networks.

Srei officials maintain that while ITC’s kiosks are more for agricultural procurement prices and their rural supermarket, theirs would allow villages to access a range of products and services.Srei says it will eventually invest Rs800 crore for a pan-India presence in this project. In Bengal, it will invest around Rs100 crore.The government will pay a minimum support revenue per kiosk to the company on a monthly basis and Srei may charge the companies that advertise their products. Kiosk space advertising will be an integral source of revenue for the company and villagers will also be charged a nominal fee for accessing the service.

“We have been present in the rural sector through our microfinance initiatives,” said Hemant Kanoria, vice-chairman and managing director, Srei. “This would help us bring IT-enabled services to the doorstep,” he added. Srei primarily offers financing for infrastructure, construction and mining equipment.

The feather in the cap undoubtedly goes to West Bengal, which has become the first state off the bloc in signing this Master Agreement, which is a part of the National e-Governance Plan. These Common Service Centres will become operational in less than twelve months.

These CSCs have the potential of developing as revenue neutral tools in the hands of other Companies and service providers keen to access rural markets. The IT-enabled e-kiosks will also be developed to provide information and services for meeting rural needs in relation to agriculture, education, vocational training, health and hygiene.

Incidentally, the Company bid for all eight zones in the State comprising 18 districts for a total of 6797 CSCs and bagged six of those against stiff competition from Companies like Reliance Communication, 3i-Infotech and Wire & Wireless India Ltd.

Source: LiveMint, Equitybulls

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