Telecentre

Srei Sahaj has a unique business model. A Common Service Centre (CSC) is operated by a Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE), hailing from that particular gram panchayat (rural local government), in an arrangement aimed at supporting direct and indirect employment generation in rural India.

Apart from being beneficial to the VLE, it also has great revenue earning potential for its associates. In most cases a successful CSC ends up employing at least two additional village youth. The local enterprise drives the business and ensures that local customers are served almost 24X7. As the CSC is owned and operated directly by the VLE or the investor, the stakes in the success of the CSC are clearly highest. Again, as the investor or the VLE hails from the local community, he or she brings in additional element of compassion, service and understanding and overall an enhanced sense of social responsibility in serving the rural customers.

This understandably often spills, in most cases welcome, into social advocacy particularly with local political and administrative leadership for brining in more Government to Consumer (G2C) services to the CSCs and also in business advocacy directly with Sahaj for brining in an increasing range of services and products to the CSCs.

Why to replicate?

CSC project is an important arm of the National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) aimed at providing common access point to the citizens to modern technology and through that to various government, business and social services and products. Sahaj eVillage Limited takes this hallowed objective on to a yet higher plane, by sharing the ownership, the problematic, the agony and the ecstasy and the achievements of the process with the rural citizens. In an unprecedented drive to enlist committed local enterprise, Sahaj has established a digital, human and physical network of 16,000 VLEs within a span of a year and half. 10,000 of them are already reaping normal profits of Rs 5000-6000 and another 4000 have just broken even. The economic infrastructure being set up is facilitating some 120 million people to participate in services like insurance, distance higher education, computer education and even development reporting on their village and block.

Who can do this?

Any one who meets the criteria of domicile in a particular GP, (where a CSC does not already exist) in the states of Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and holding an undergraduate degree, with capacity to arrange for a down payment (varying from Rs 40,000 to Rs10, 000).

How to proceed

Please contact your nearest Sahaj E village Limited Office in your district if you happen to be from the Sahaj states and the districts within that or write to enquiries@sahajcorporate.com or media@sahajcorporate.com. Alternatively you can also visit http://www.mit.gov.in/default.aspx?id=968 for details on who to contact for further information.