This write-up explores the various dimensions of the ambitious National e-Governance Programme (NeGP), especially the setting up of 100,000 Common Services Centres (CSCs). It looks at the programme that would facilitate citizen service delivery, and sktches out the defined roles of the many stakeholders, both at the centre, and the state levels, of implementation and sustainability. Some key challenges in implementation and management are also enumerated. This article has been produced in collaboration with IL&FS, the National level service agency for CSCs in India.
Upscaling for ubiquitous access
The adage that India lives in its villages is as close to reality even now as it was in the pre-independence period. India, according to the 2001 national census, has a population of 1,027 million people, one-sixth of the world's total, living in 5,000 towns and cities and 581,000 villages. This population is growing at the rate of 2.5 per cent per annum. Among the many serious challenges the country faces, managing and improving the quality of life of the fast growing and changing local communities, is one that requires urgent attention. This observation on the importance of the operational framework shifts the focus from information technology (IT) and its impact on the efficiency and productivity of the operational system.
A national level advocacy was launched by the National Alliance for Mission 2007. The Chennai statement on upscaling pro-poor ICT policies and practices (2005) provided a framework for this advocacy. The Government of India launched the prestigious National e-Governance Programme (NeGP) to bridge the digital divide existing between the urban and rural areas. The NeGP is aimed at improving the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of Government services to citizens and businesses with the help of information and communication technologies (ICT), and consists of three interconnected compo-nents of State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centres (SDCs) and the Common Services Centres (CSCs), as the nodal points for front end citizen service delivery.
The CSCs (Common Services Centres) are being seen as a major governance intervention for enhancing efficiency, bringing in transparency and accountability, and reducing operating costs. India possesses vast human resources in digital technology. Given that societies like India are big and administering them would have time and efficiency hurdles, an introduction of the digital medium is perceived to be the best available solution for better governance. Common Services Centres is the front end of a long and complex process of providing better governance and other essential value-added services.
The Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India proposes to facilitate the establishment of a network of more than 100,000 Internet enabled Information and Communication Technology (ICT) access points termed Common Services Centres (CSC). The CSCs are meant to provide high quality and cost effective video, voice and data content, in the areas of e-Government, Agriculture, Education, Health, Tele-medicine, Entertainment as well as possible government and private services. The Project is currently under implementation in many states including Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana, Bihar, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Sikkim and by March 2008 around 50,000 CSCs are likely to be established. The goal of the CSC Project is to empower the rural community and catalyze social change through modern technologies.
How to create a marketable and sustaining framework?
The CSC programme envisages a bottom-up model for delivery of content, services, information and knowledge, that can allow like-minded public and private enterprises - through a collaborative framework - to integrate their goals of profit as well as social objectives, into a sustainable business model for achieving rapid socio-economic change in rural India. It is the community participation and collective action, not ICT alone, which will lead to a behavioral shift for a sustainable socio-economic change and long-term rural prosperity.
The framework: The CSC programme has two important components, namely, infrastructure and services.
Infrastructure framework: There are two major parts under infrastructure:
Physical Infrastructure includes the site and space for the CSC as well as other infrastructure like furniture, storage, security, UPS, Genset, wireless equipment, telemedicine equipment, etc.
Digital Infrastructure comprises of all onsite technology equipment, such as PCs, Printers, Scanners, Projectors, Digital Camera, Software, Television, etc.
Services framework: The key driver for the selection of content and services would be their end-to-end applicability. This means that a specific content/service should be in a marketable format for it to be selected as a part of the service network in the CSCs. Broadly, the services selection would be on their ability to impact the consumer through saving cost, helping income generation and enabling socio-economic development.
A three tier stakeholder plan
The programme is being rolled out to establish CSCs across the country with an equitable geographical spread through a three-tier structure for the States.
(i) At the first (CSC) level would be the local Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE- loosely analogous to a franchisee).
(ii) At the second/middle level would be an entity termed as the Service Centre Agency (SCA – loosely analogous to a franchiser).
(iii) At the third level would be the agency designated by the State to facilitate implementation of the programme within the State. This agency will be termed as the State Designated Agency (SDA)
Since the implementation of a project of this size and scope would pose significant challenges of project management at the national level as also in exploiting opportunities to achieve significant economies of scale, a National Level Service Agency (NLSA) namely Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd. (IL&FS) has been appointed. This Agency has been assisting the DIT and the States in carrying all works related at the pre-implementation and implementation phase of the CSC Scheme. The NLSA is working with DIT to develop a Public Private Partnership framework for the Scheme; coalesce diverse stakeholders to work through common institutional and contractual frameworks; harness national level resources; loop best practices; enable transparent and inclusive process of participation across stakeholders; undertake to underwrite resources for the scheme; standardise design; and content and processes into a replicable collaborative framework and so on.
Bidding trends in the CSC Scheme
The Service Center Agency (SCA) has been selected on a transparent bidding mechanism by SDA. The SCA would be the prime driver of the CSC Scheme and the owner of the CSC business in the State. The SCA would be responsible for the overall profitability and sustainability of the CSC business. At the second level, the SCAs would select the Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs). The SCA would manage a network of VLEs who in turn would manage the operational business of the CSC at the village level. The VLEs would report to the SCA.
How are the roles defined at various level?
State Designated Agency at State Level (SDA)
The State Designated Agency (SDA) will facilitate the implementation of the CSC scheme through field formations (SCAs) and/or the district administration in the entire State, and provide necessary legal and policy measures to enable the SCA/CSCs to come into being, attain sustainability and deliver government services as contemplated in the CSC framework.
Service Centre Agency (SCA):
SCAs will set-up service delivery channels and provide secure and safe Government-to-Citizen (G2C) and Business-to-Citizen (B2C) services through the network of CSCs allocated to it. The SCA can be a private sector agency, a PSU, a training institute, an NGO or a co-operative. The key role of the SCA vis-à-vis the CSC Scheme hence would be: Setting up of CSCs in a phased implementation programme with the requisite hardware and software Provide connectivity to the CSCs by deploying appropriate communication technologies for interactive and online access to voice and data based services. Connectivity up to the block level is expected to be facilitated by the state government through SWAN/NICNET/wireless, etc. Maintain and manage the CSCs through locally selected and trained kiosk operators after properly identifying entrepreneurs Promote the use of CSCs in the rural areas through local promotion campaigns. Identify and colloborate with B2C service providers to create and deploy services. The key challenges for the SCA would be to manage secure, safe and trusted service delivery channel on one hand and integrate pieces of the service delivery chain.
Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE):
The VLE is the key to the success of the CSC operations. While content and services are important, it is the VLE's entrepreneurial ability that is critical to ensure CSC sustainability.
There are a host of G2C services are being delivered in CSCs. Some of the services are issue of Record of Rights (RoR), birth certificate, death certificates, caste certificates, nationality certificate and income certificate.
Keeping in mind the implementation challenges
a. The motto of the CSCs scheme is to provide rural population (citizens and businesses) e-Services, which is efficiently and effectively delivered at affordable rates. However, this requires not only adequate infrastructure (connectivity, broadband, etc.) but also a trained pool of manpower and capacity building of the rural masses. Rural youths and members from self-help groups (SHGs) who are literate but not adequately trained for recruitment in the CSCs, can be provided IT-based training (in both hardware and software). Similarly, rural masses (say, for example, one member from one household, as it had happened in the case of Akshaya, a Kerala state IT mission initiative) can go through capacity-building sessions so that they know the importance of e-Literacy, e-Commerce, usage of Internet, etc.
The way ahead
The CSCs (Common Services Centres) are being seen as a major governance intervention for enhancing efficiency, bringing in transparency and accountability, and reducing operating costs. Thus CSCs are seen not merely as service delivery points. 
Additional Reading: Website of the Department of Information Technology, Gover-nment of India http://www.mit.gov.in/default.aspx?id=825 Rajeev Chawla, Ranjit Kumar Maiti, Anirban Mukerji and A. K. Sharma, "Common Service Centres Pragramme Review, NeGP, India: A journery through three states", Accessed from http://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp?articleid=1382&typ=Features Shambhu Ghatak, "CSCs: An overview - The change ahead", Accessed from http://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp? articleid=1381&typ=Features ttp://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp?articleid=1383&typ=Features Gerster, Richard and immermann, Sonja (ed) (2005), "Chennai Statement on Up- scaling Pro-Poor ICT Policies and Practices", SDC/MSSRF, Available at:http://www.idrc.ca/uploads/user- S/11066003221Chennai_statement.pdf 
Solar powered solution for CSCs The major challenge that one has to face in setting up of ICT kiosk is the power back up as the viability of the kiosk depends on the hours of its operation. Therefore to secure the hours of the operation to render services to the public more effectively, NLSA has initiated dialogue with several companies which are into DDG (Decentralized Distributed Generation) technologies based on renewable energy such as Solar photovoltaic and Hybrid power, and are considered as emerging alternate power solutions for rural ICT initiatives. One of the licensed manufacturers of Solar unit 'TERI' was appointed by NLSA as the national knowledge partner for the development of energy options for the Common Services Centres Scheme. The institute has now developed a unique solution for the power problem faced by CSCs . TERI's solution, named Solverter™, has dual charge battery that can be charged from solar energy as well as from AC mains. It comes in a rugged box—the size of an ordinary UPS/inverter. This solution eliminates the normal UPS and battery; instead it uses a 75-W solar panel, a 100-AH battery, and the Solverter™. The Solar system was tested at one of the pilot centre at Baramati, Maharashtra; the pack provided continuous backup for up to six hours during the non-availability of electricity at the centre. On 13th and 14th September 2007, NLSA had organised the SCA enabling meeting with the SDAs of the States where CSC roll out has been initiated to understand the implementation issues and the way forward. The SDAs from Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana and Bihar had participated in the Meeting. For further details contact : The Energy and Resources Institute www.teriin.org
