Common Service Centre e-Governance Services India on Wednesday got ‘in principle’ approval from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for functioning as Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit (BBPOU).

This will make it easier for citizens to pay their bills — electricity, water, gas, and also recharge their mobile phones — using it a payment gateway. Till now, CSCs were functioning for providing only e-tickets, Aadhaar enrolment and passport application, etc.

It is a payment system with a single-point providing ‘anytime anywhere payment system’ to customers, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communications and IT, told reporters here.

It will also be extended in facilitation of collection of school/ university fee, examination fee, government payments such as tax, mutual funds, insurance premium as decided by time to time by the RBI. Customers would be offered to make payment of any bill at any place through debit/ credit cards, once the licence is made operational, which may take around three more months, Prasad said.

“The bill payment service through CSC would also help in creating additional infrastructure at CSCs, including deployment of manpower for running such services. With deployment of at least one additional resource at CSC, the bill payment service would create the employment of around 1.60 lakh people,” Prasad said.

He said this will enable the CSCs to go into interiors of the country and he would make sure that the BharatNet (NOFN) also gives linkages to these CSCs on a priority basis to make them digitally connected.

There are around two lakh CSCs now and by December, there will be 2.50 lakh, Prasad said adding that out of the 100 crore Aadhaar numbers allotted, 10.79 crore have been done at CSCs.

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