A single room — equipped with a battery-run computer — linked to the Internet and operated by a man. All these may be earlier unheard of in the Naxal-hit Bansdih panchayat of Chainpur block in Palamau.
Yet, this non-descript room has become a well known address of Ayodhaya Choudhary, a Village level Entrepreneur(VlE) of the Jharkhand government. From this location and with these few gizmos, Choudhary has become a household name in the whole village. ReasonIJ Official records show Choudhary had opened 2,500 bank accounts of pensioners and MNREGA workers using their Aadhaar numbers during the past one year and continued to release pension and MNREGA wages on behalf of the Bank. He earns over Rs 5,000 per month.
Choudhary is not an odd VlE in the State. like him there were many VlEs, each a product of the government’s Common Service Centre(CSC)-Pragya Kendra- project in Jharkhand. Even the VlE Surendra Sao, a matriculate, works at Patakpagar panchayat of Tarashi block, in Palamau. Sao is credited to have opened 6,000 Bank Accounts and released 26,75,080 payment using the same gadgets.
All of them were self-employed. In addition, each of them have become an agent of change, contributing to the revenue generation, delivered Government’s ‘e- Nagrik’ services like — issuance and processing of birth, death, residential and income certificates — and brought banking services at the door step of the villagers. For these villagers, the advantages brought about by these successful VlEs were many. For instance, consider the case of two MNREGA workers Paro Devi and Nanku Rani.
In the past, to get their wages, they had to travel nearly 20 km and had to go to the Post Office. Now, they got the payment right at their village in Donk Panchayat under Manika block in lathar.” It has brought great relief to all of us”, said Rani. The Pragya Kendra project is being monitored by the Information Technology Department.” We are trying to further strengthen the Pragya Kendras”, said IT Department’s Principal Secretary NN Sinha.
The IT department documents, highlighting benefits of the Pragya Kendra Project in the State, say that integrated and convergent service approach (e-governance, Aadhar, banking and government services) to women yielded multiple benefits to citizens. “Social enterprise/business approach has contributed to revenue generation as well as fast track delivery of government services at the door steps with high potentials for sustainability, replicability and up-scaling it,” the documents said.
“Besides, women banking approach has contributed to gender equity and equal opportunities for women. Also, public-private-partnership mode brought in government, business, non-government entities and communities closer which contributed to increase in access to banking and government services,” the Government papers said. It also ensures no cut in MGNREGS wages & pension payments and fast track delivery of Government subsidies and payments, comparing post offices and bank branches.
Also, flexibility in banking hours (long hours, even in Sundays), avoided the hassle of travelling long time, low/no cost of travel, reduced travel hours, less time for banking operation, low operating costs, reduced opportunity cost and no loss of work due to banking operation. With less time for opening account compared to two to three days in banks, the biometric (thumb impression) based payment leaves less scope for cheating/identity theft as has been happening in a few post offices where keeping passbooks is still a practice.