e-governance centres to be a reality in villages soon

5,713 units to provide govt, pvt sector services under one roof

The Union government’s Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme of taking government and private sector citizen services to villages through the electronic mode will finally be implemented in Karnataka.

The scheme, part of the Central government’s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), will be implemented in all 30 districts with the setting up of 5,713 CSCs across gram panchayats in the coming months.

The CSCs will provide hundreds of Government to Citizen (G2C) and Business to Citizen (B2C) services such as payment of utility bills, booking of railway and bus tickets, services of the Revenue department like copies of land records, caste, income, birth and death certificates at the village level.

The 5,713 CSCs will be in addition to the 776 Atalji Janasnehi Kendras that are providing similar services at the hobli level, sources in the Directorate of Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services of the e-governance department, which is implementing the project, told Deccan Herald.

The scheme, which was first mooted in 2008, has been implemented in several states but Karnataka lagged behind. In a bid to make up for the delay, the scheme will be launched simultaneously across all 30 districts, the sources said. A budget of Rs 77.92 crore has been earmarked for the project.

The e-governance department is in the process of shortlisting Service Centre Agencies (private players) which will set up, operate and manage the CSCs. Tenders inviting private players for the selection of SCAs were floated two weeks ago and they have been given time till February 18 to submit their proposals, the sources said. The CSC will be manned by a local entrepreneur at the villages coming under the jurisdiction of the centres. On an average, one CSC will cater to six villages. The entrepreneur to man the CSC will be selected by jurisdictional committees which will have representatives of the government among others, the sources said.

The government will provide financial help to the village entrepreneur, if required, to set up the CSC. The centre will be housed in 150-200 sq ft space equipped with laptops/desktops with Internet connection, UPS and furniture for storage of documents and stationary. Access to the portal required for the services will be provided by the e-governance department. The village entrepreneur will be provided a percentage of the fee charged for providing the G2C and B2C services. The entrepreneur will be trained by the department.

The CSCs will remain open from 9 am to 8 pm, excluding Sundays and State government holidays.