Cabinet gives nod for web-enabled rural India

New Delhi, Sep 21 (UNI) Union Cabinet today gave the nod for setting up 100,000 rural common services centres across the country aimed at bridging the digital divide in one of the biggest public-private partnerships in the rural sector.

About 600,000 villages will benefit from these centres, which will be built at a total cost of Rs 5,742 crore, an official spokesperson told reporters after the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The private sector will pump in Rs 4,093 crore to the scheme, compared to the central government's Rs 856 crore and Rs 793 crore by the states.

''The scheme is aimed at making all government services accessible to the common people in their locality,'' the spokesperson said.

The government expects to generate 100,000 jobs directly through the project and an additional 200,000 more indirect jobs.

The common service centres are to be rolled out in 18 months by March 2008.

These centres are considered a strategic cornerstone of the National E.Governance Plan approved by the government in May this year as part of its commitment under the National Common Minimum Programme to introduce e.governance on a massive scale.

The common service centres are one of the three infrastructure pillars of e.governance to ensure ''anytime anywhere'' web-enabled delivery of government services. The other two are the State Wide Area Network Connectivity, approved at a cost of Rs 3,334 crore, and State Data Centres.

The common centres will be the front-end for delivering a range of government services, including payment of electricity bills, various applications, vocational training and weather information.

The 100,000 villages under the project will become internet- enabled through broadband offering a basket of government-to-citizen and business-to-customer services.

The government says common service centres will provide high quality and cost-effective video, voice and data content and services in the areas of e.governance, education, health, telemedicine, entertainment as well as private services. A highlight of the centres will be the facility to fill in application forms, receive certificates and make utility payments like electricity, telephone and water bills.

Public and private services could become accessible through the centres including remote consulting for health care, e.enabled vocational training, market and supply chain linkages, rural business process outsourcing, agricultural prices and weather information.

The common services centres are envisaged to act as ''change agents'' in accelerating integration of the rural masses into the economic mainstream of the country, the spokesperson said.

While the project is a central scheme aimed at covering the whole nation, its implementation is decentralised enabling entrepreneurship to flourish locally, the spokesperson said.

The private sector and NGOs will play an active role in the implementation of the scheme, says the government, by becoming a partner in the development of rural India.

The public-private-participation model has a three-tier structure of the common service centre operator called Village Level Entrepreneur, Service Centre Agency for 200-500 service centres and a State Designated Agency identified by the state government responsible for the implementation in the entire state.

UNI