Common service centres in India for women and child development

Abstract

With the aim of taking information and communication technologies (ICTs) to rural areas, the Government of India has come up with Common Service Centres (CSCs) which are envisioned as the front-end delivery points for Government, private and social sector services to rural citizens of India. The Government of Karnataka's vision for the Common Service Centre Project is that the IT enabled Government Services should be accessible to the common man in his village, through efficient, transparent, reliable and affordable means. This vision is to be realized by the State Government by setting up the CSC project in partnership with 2 or more private entities who will establish the network of Common Service Centres and deliver range of G2C and B2C services through the network of CSCs. The Government of Karnataka have introduced Nemmadi Centers on a PPP model at Hobli (Sub- Taluk Revenue circle catering to 6-8 Gram Panchayats) level to deliver Revenue Department related 42 services. Although citizens are quite satisfied with these services, a few CSCs were unable to break even. The delivery of government, private and social sector services aimed to be offered through these CSCs were not achieved to the desired level. A concept paper developed by CPP, IIMB suggested that limited number of services and lack of e-readiness were the prime reasons behind this unsuccessful venture. The paper suggested a new design for the CSCs based on the principles of stakeholder's need based design with clustering of integrated and complete services. This new design was aimed at effective delivery of various schemes and policies of the government including the policies of the Women and Child Development Department as well. This new design is proposed to be demonstrated through Pilot studies at Gram Panchayat level. This pilot helps not only to test the soundness of the new concept but also would have the flexibility of modifying the design based on the needs and processes. This CCS project has been taken up with an objective of studying the implementation of these Pilot studies