Prasad to take up Telecom, IT portfolios

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad getting back charge of telecommunications will help in expediting roll out of Digital Villages envisaged by the government, CSC e-Governance Services India Dinesh Tyagi said on Friday.

"Roll out of Digital Villages as announced by government will be expedited with minister (Prasad) getting back charge of communications. Earlier, the two departments were working in different formats," Tyagi said.

There are 3.9 lakh village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) that are running common service centres (CSCs) in rural areas across the country.

VLEs provide government services in rural areas through CSCs like train ticket booking, passport application, birth certificate, registration for Ayushman scheme etc.

In the interim budget, the government said that there are more than 3 lakh common service centres operating across the country delivering government services that are available digitally to people in rural areas and helping government create digital villages.

The government had announced that it will create 1 lakh digital villages in the next five years.

Union minister Piyush Goyal had unveiled the government's vision for 2030 in which digital technologies will play a pivotal role.

Goyal had said that the digital infrastructure in the digital economy of 2030 will be built upon successes achieved in recent years in digitisation of government processes and private transactions.

"Minister (Prasad) guided the expansion of CSCs. VLEs have expressed happiness on getting him back to lead the CSC revolution again," Tyagi said.