Common service centres more profitable under women; non-metro regions pip cities

India’s Common Services Centres (CSCs) have, since their inception in 2009, evolved as critical access points for e-delivery of government services and schemes. Their significance as viable models of small enterprise entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment is highlighted in a recent survey of centres in Bengaluru city, Bengaluru rural district, Ramanagara, and Mandya.

Researchers from the Institute of Social Change and Economics (ISEC) marked strong post-Covid recovery in these centres with two key data points. They found that by 2023, CSCs run by women in these regions were generating more profits than the centres run by men. CSCs or jan seva kendras in the non-metropolitan regions have also closed a significant pre-pandemic income gap by 2023, and now earn more than the metropolitan centres.

The survey was funded by the Azim Premji Foundation and conducted in 2022 and 2023, on a sample of 200 CSC entrepreneurs (136 women and 64 men). The findings by Meenakshi Rajeev, professor at ISEC’s Centre for Economic Studies and Policy (CESP) and Pranav Nagendran, research assistant at CESP, have been published in the form of a policy brief – Technology, Livelihood and Gender: The case of Common Services Centre under Digital India programme.

The survey found that in 2023, women, on an average, earned Rs 1,583 more than similar-matched men in monthly incomes. This difference could not be observed in the 2019-2022 incomes. There are similar patterns in the returns on investment (in box). The researchers underscored “significantly greater aptitude” among women in leveraging post-pandemic business opportunities.

They estimate that the CSC entrepreneurs, or government-certified village-level entrepreneurs, make an initial investment of about Rs 1.2 lakh on equipment – laptop, photocopier, printer, biometric reader, etc. The earnings come in the form of commission/service charge for every delivered service.

As in February 2024, India has over 5.7 lakh functional CSCs, about 4.48 lakh of them in rural areas. The centres provide services related to Aadhaar, welfare programmes, and various government-to-citizens schemes.

Prof Meenakshi said the decentralised, e-platform model ensured greater transparency in delivery of government services, while providing new livelihood opportunities for women. “The pre-Covid numbers were largely similar for men and women but now, the women are earning more. It has to be noted that these units can also include ancillary businesses, like a studio or stationery sales,” she told DH.

The higher earnings from non-metropolitan centres were attributed to increasing adoption of digitised services and increasing capability of customers in metropolitan regions to access these services on their own.

Enabling entrepreneurs

The researchers suggested policy interventions to address some of the operational challenges faced by the entrepreneurs that include server-related issues with online portals through which the registrations are done. Availability of credit (86% mentioned this as a bottleneck) and inadequate training (cited by 78%) were among the challenges the respondents highlighted. Many entrepreneurs said they used online resources like social media groups to understand the functioning of the business.