Karnataka plans on-spot service delivery in villages

Last-mile link

In a move aimed at providing last-mile delivery, the B S Yediyurappa administration is working on a plan to appoint 'service providers' in every village who will be authorised to deliver government services on the spot.

The plan is taking shape in the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) and is in line with the 'Sarkari Seve — Mane Bagilige' (government service — at the doorstep) motto that Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar is pushing.

Under the new scheme — tentatively titled 'Village One' after the popular Bangalore One — over 50 services have been identified that can be delivered by service providers with a computer, Internet connection and a printer. "That's the only investment we require these service providers to have. We will give them login access to government databases to generate or deliver services," an official said.

The services identified include providing certified copies of record of rights, tenancy and crops (RTC), Aadhaar, NREGA, ration card and others.

"There are already middlemen who are making these services available to people. We want to formalise this by appointing them as service providers," the official said. "So, the government has fixed Rs 15 for a certified RTC copy. We will allow the service providers to charge, say, Rs 25 for it. The extra is their income." This can also create self-employment in villages, authorities believe. "While there need to be a cap on the number of service providers, we expect to get at least 2-3 in every village," the officer said.

Confirming this, Chief Minister's Secretary S Selvakumar said, "We're still discussing the plan."

Karnataka has 29,340 villages. The government has been pushing banks to ensure their services are accessible to them. To this end, there are 6,134 active banking correspondents with micro ATMs. Of them, 3,845 work within gram panchayat offices.

Also, under the Sarkari Seve — Mane Bagilige motto, the government has decided to scale up the Janasevaka project, which is similar to Village One in principle. Janasevaka is modelled after the AAP government's initiative in Delhi for home delivery of caste/income certificates, land records, health cards and so on.

After a pilot project in Bengaluru’s Dasarahalli, it will be extended to Bommanahalli, Rajajinagar and Mahadevapura.