Pragya Kendra 2009

The Common Service Center project is in full swing. In Jharkhand there has been both proactive support as well as indifference on the part of the local administration in supporting CSCs. While one of the important components of the project, verification and certification of CSCs has been very slow, about 120 Block offices and District headquarters have CSCs with SWAN (JharNet). 3000 of the 4562 panchayats have CSCs but there is little support in the connectivity related problems. SCAs too find it uneconomical to bear the cost of a private network for connectivity, especially in the present conditions where online activity is minimal. Where required, VLEs themselves opt for low cost low bandwidth connectivity, mostly GPRS.
Not that all is bad. Many actions have been done which prove one fact……… a little support and demonstration of ownership of the project can go a long way in benefiting all stakeholders; i.e. Government, citizens, SCAs and VLEs.
In the State of Jharkhand, any experiments have been completed and many are in process.
Pilot of E-nagarik sewa has been completed and based on the success, has been approved for implementation across the State. East Singbhum district had taken the lead with one of its block, Golmuri –cum- Jugsalai being a block where no applications are received at the Block office. This has made it mandatory for citizens to submit applications at Pragya Kendras. 8 Pragya Kendras of the 33 I the Block have got a good response and approx 8000 applications have been received and processed by the BDO. Taking cue from this, Meral Block of Garhwa district and Mandar block of Ranchi district too have taken the same approach. As a result, citizens are benefited as they get the required certificates within a couple of days without having to go to the Block town; BDOs are benefited as they have a CSC which is taking care of all the crowd that used to assemble at his office; Govt is benefited as all issued certificates are available in the State database for record. VLE is benefited as he earns sufficient income from the E-Nagarik sewa as per GoJ approved rates and the SCA is benefitted as VLEs themselves have taken interest in getting the best available connectivity option.
In another example, JAP-IT had been implementing the E-kalyan project in 2008 and as per the project requirement it required an agency for digitization of 65000 scholarship data of the pilot district of Lohardaga. It assigned the job to CSCs and completed it in three months. The success emboldened it to consider the same channel for digitization of the data for replication of the project on a state level. As the data digitization was an online activity, all CSCs got connected to available connectivity means without any delay. This has also encouraged JAP-IT to consider CSC as the channel for other similar assignments. In a major development, JAP-IT is considering assigning CSCs the job of digitization of the 18th national cattle data survey wherein 56,00,000 data is to be digitized in three months. It has understood that within the given timeframe and cost, no other channel can give it the required results.
Latehar district administration has taken up financial inclusion in a big way. It has targeted all NREGS beneficiaries in the first phase and wanted all of them to have bank accounts for uniformity in wage disbursals. DC Latehar thus invited the SCA in its meeting with Punjab National Bank. The SCA and the Bank agreed to complete the assignment within a fixed timeframe. PNB has agreed to compensate all VLEs involved in filling up KYC forms and assisting in opening the new accounts. The bank also wants to strengthen its activities by using the CSC network to maintain the accounts.
In other isolated cases of local support, DC Simdega has assigned all sundry data entry and data digitization work to CSCs which would have other wise required hiring of agencies and operators. NREGS MIS data entry is also being initiated at CSCs in the district. DC Gumla has requested for appropriated JAP-IT support in initiating E-Nagarik sewa in three blocks. DEO Dhanbad has initiated a project where all Govt school students can go to a CSC and feel a computer. This is remuneration based and the DOE has assured Rs 5 per student per month to the CSCs. All that the VLE has to do is to familiarize students with computers, not to teach computers. Finally, DIO Jamshedpur has digitized all NCERT books of the GoJ school syllabus and has circulated the CDs to all CSCs. Students who have not got the books till now, can purchase or read the books, even in parts, at their local CSCs.
All these prove one thing; with the availability of the CSCs, more and more experiments and innovation is required so that viability of G2G and citizen centric services is assessed. Both, the citizens and Govt can derive benefits from the CSC network only if diverse and innovative experiments are undertaken.