The National e-Governance Programme (NeGP) was launched in 2006 by the Centre with a target to achieve 1lakh Common Service Centres (CSCs) (Jana Seva Kendras) by 2011.
A CSC, which is supposed to cater to the need of 5-6 revenue villages in a gram panchayat, is an avenue where the rural citizenry will avail services like payment of water and electricity bills, residence certificate, income certificate, legal heir certificate, certified copy of Record-of-Rights (ROR), etc easily.
On August 2, the CSCs were launched throughout the country and hence this day is observed as CSC day. As a part of awareness drive, Service Centre Agency (SCA) named BASIX organised a workshop in Kumutipentha gram panchayat where Rayagada Tehsildar Sumanta Kumar Das and Block Vice Chairperson Gowrishankar attended as chief guest and guest, respectively. Several Village level Entrepreneurs promoted by BASIX, local youth and PRI members participated.
Inaugurating the workshop, Das said about the relevance of CSC in providing basic services within a time bound manner as per Odisha Rights to Public Services Act-2012. “Services available through electronic devices like computers will also intimate the citizens or the customers through SMS,” he said.
Scribe TB Kumar said, “We need to assess the ground realities in Rayagada as far as proliferation of CSCs is concerned. Though Rayagada district has 2,556 revenue villages, there are only 53 active CSCs after BASIX took up the work in PPP mode in 2008. At the present pace, we need at least 45 years to cover rest of the villages. The interior blocks like Gudari, Chandrapur and Kashipur do not have a single CSC. But if there is a concerted effort by all the stakeholders like VlEs, district adminisatrtion, SCA, PRI members and general public, the present situation can be improved.”
According to Gowrishankar, “The electricity and telephone services, which are keys to a CSC, need to be uninterrupted to run internet. In interior villages, these services are still poor which is a discouraging factor for new VlEs to take risks. Representatives of BASIX should spread this awareness in gram panchayat and PS meetings so that the PRI members with an increased awareness can exert pressure on the supporting service providers.” Underscoring the importance of the Jana Seva Kendras, he added that the poor people can save lots of money, time and energy if the CSC functions effectively. Initially, though it has taken time to take off, with an increased awareness, the speed can be accelerated, he hoped.
While Jagan Rao, laxmi Narayan, Surya Narayan Samantaray, Hari Kadraka and Ajay Rath participated in the workshop, BASIX district manager Biswajit Pradhan extended vote of thanks.