The Competition Commission has rejected charges of abuse of dominant position by CSC eGovernance Services India in market for providing electronic services under an initiative of the central government.
CSC has the responsibility of monitoring a project related to Common Service Centre scheme, which is meant for providing various e-services at the village level.
A complaint filed by CSC Forum had alleged that the agency was abusing its dominant position by creating an indepe independent portal for delivering G2C and B2C services and not integrating them with that of the Service Centre Agencies, taking suo motu decisions on commercials and directly getting in touch with village level entrepreneurs.
In a recent order, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said that “no prima facie case of contravention of the provisions of…the (Competition) Act is made out against the opposite party in the present case”.
“Accordingly, the matter is closed forthwith in terms of the provisions contained in…the Act,” it added.
CCI observed that there was no data to indicate that the opposite party enjoys a dominant position.
“…the Commission is of the view that the opposite party prima facie is not dominant in the market for provision of e-services through the CSC network in India,” CCI said.
As per the order, CSC Forum was aggrieved by alleged anti-competitive conduct of the agency floated by Ministry of Communication & Information Technology for building a common identity for the CSC scheme – which is one of the 27 mission mode projects designed to be implemented on a public private partnership mode.
The scheme provides for delivery of government, financial, social and private sector services in the areas of agriculture, health, education, entertainment, FMCG products, banking, insurance, pension, utility payments, among others.