Imagining e-governance through cash on delivery
With the use of deceptive technology, CSC is mulling to offer government to citizen services beyond Aadhar card in a cash on delivery mode
Dr Adnan Khan, who runs a dental clinic in Meerut, could not follow up on the status of his Aadhar card application due to his engaged schedule. After a delay of more than a month, he enquired with the nearest common service centre (CSC), an e-governance delivery centre having basic computing infrastructure, run and operated by the local community entrepreneur. To his pleasant surprise, the CSC delivered the printed Aadhar card on a PVC the next day. Dr Khan had to pay only Rs 50 for the service.
Basically, in order to offer hassle free government services experience, CSC has recently launched cash on delivery option for government to citizen (G2C) services. One now need not stand in a queue to get government documents. By merely submitting an online request, services could be availed seating at home. Currently, Aadhar card related services are being offered under this programme and more services are likely to be added very soon. “If you can deliver government to citizen (G2C) services in a cash on delivery mode, insulating people from going to government offices, you will bring a revolution in the mindset of people,” says Dinesh Tyagi, CEO, CSC e-Governance Services India, adding that about 10% of total 100 crore Aadhar enrolments have been done by CSCs and almost 40% of Aadhar applications are being generated through CSCs.
The common service centres were envisaged to be a strategic component of the National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) in 2006 as a low cost medium for government organisations to deliver the e-governance services to the rural population. Although, over the years, about 1,60,000 CSCs across 600,000 rural villages have been set-up under the public-private partnership, they remained largely inactive in the absence of public and business-to-consumer services and half-hearted efforts on the part of government and private organisations running the network. Therefore, department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) set up a monitoring unit – CSC Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) – in 2012 to oversee the implementation of the CSC schemes and its outcomes on behalf of the government at the national and state levels.
Since then, the focus of CSC has evolved and it has now forayed into government financial inclusion and pension schemes. About 30,000 CSCs are involved in the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana as a business correspondence. And last year’s financial commission to these CSCs had been Rs 40 crores from banking services alone. “Our objective is to make every CSC a business correspondence point so that they can deliver banking and corresponding services. To enable this, we have recently signed the agreements with almost all the major public sector banks,” informs Tyagi.
Interestingly, most of these CSCs also work as an agent for insurance companies by collecting their premium and selling insurance products. According to an estimate by CSC, they collect Rs 1-crore premium every day, leading to enhance commission for the local entrepreneur and higher renewal rate for insurance firms. Although services related to banking and insurance fetch more commission for local entrepreneur, the major attraction of the people remain basic services such as getting application forms or getting assistance in applying for the jobs. Like in Rajasthan, when the state government launched an application for the police recruitment, almost 25 lakh people applied for the job through CSCs. Services such as payment of electricity bill, application for ration card and elector photo identity card are frequently sought after.
Encouraged from the outcome of the financial inclusion and Aadhar related services, CSC is now mulling to leverage it vast network to provide Internet services in rural villages. It has recently taken the ISP licence to enable local entrepreneur to offer Internet service through NOFN backbone. In fact, it has now decided to establish new centres only in NOFN zone and already running centres will be shifted from their existing location.
In addition, CSC is building an e-commerce platform for enabling village level entrepreneur to sell popular local products across the country. “Although, we have signed the agreements with large companies like Flipkart and Snapdeal, they mostly serve in urban areas. So we are now trying to create ourselves a platform to do something with the products which are unique to India,” says Tyagi, adding that entrepreneur will be encouraged to sell popular local products like Agra shoes.
