The Hindu Business Line : IT kiosks to be set up in 1 lakh villages

The Minister for IT and Communications, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, with the Cabinet Secretary, Mr B.K. Chaturvedi, at the National e-Governance Plan conference with States in the Capital on Wednesday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi , Oct. 19

PEOPLE living in far-flung villages will soon be able to avail themselves of a slew of services ranging from procuring land records to getting caste certificates for jobs at the click of a mouse.

The Government plans to to roll out `common service centres' or IT kiosks in one lakh villages across the country by 2007 as part of the National e-Government Plan.

The Department of IT will move a proposal to the Cabinet on the approach and modalities for the e-government plan including the implementation framework, the types of services to be offered and the roll-out plan for these kiosks for an integrated delivery of government services.

"In villages, people have to go all the way to State headquarters to procure community certificates and land records, and then they are asked to come after a few weeks. Such information should be available to people with a click of a mouse. In a country like India where more than 70 per cent of the population lives in villages, we have a responsibility to reach them," said the Minister for IT and Communications, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, addressing a conference with State governments on the national e-governance plan.

The plan is to establish such kiosks in one lakh villages in a `honeycomb model', which means one out of every six village will house a common service centre where people can avail themselves of a host of services including searching for land records, getting grievances addressed, procuring caste certificate for jobs or even checking their children's results online.

"In the first phase, we decided to have a State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Rs 3,300 crore was allotted by the Planning Commission. Over 17 States have started implementing it and most of them have been allocated the funds. SWAN is a digital link on which the services will ride. Now, the idea is to set up common service centres," said Mr Maran.

The Minister said while 17 States including Tamil Nadu, Karanataka, West Bengal and Uttaranchal were taking the lead in implementing e-governance programmes, some other States were generating a "lukewarm" response. "This approach has to change and we need every State to be a part of the programme," he said.

Besides deliberating on the establishment of SWAN and setting up service centres, the conference that included chief secretaries and IT secretaries of State governments also discussed the proposed approach to assigning a unique identity for individuals in BPL families to better target the delivery of government welfare and other programmes for the poor.

The National e-Government Plan is aimed at improving the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of government services to citizens and businesses with the help of ICT (information and communication technologies). It has eight components and 26 mission mode projects to be executed over a four-year period.

Mission mode projects comprise projects under the Central Government, the State departments, and integrated projects which involve multiple ministries, departments or agencies.

The Central Government projects cover programmes such as national ID, central excise, income tax, DCA-21, passports/visa and immigration, pensions, banking and insurance, while the State level projects include land records, property registration, transport, agriculture, municipalities, gram panchayats, commercial taxes, treasuries, police and employment exchange.

The integrated projects include e-business, common service centres, India portal, e-procurement and e-courts.

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