Common Services Centers Scheme. Newsletter. Vol 2 Issue 4 April 2008

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1 Newsletter. Vol 2 Issue 4 April 2008 Think of Them! Think of Helping Them! HIV/AIDS is a pandemic. Huge efforts are on to contain it under several programs. One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations is to reduce the prevalence of this disease. One of the biggest challenges faced by health workers and volunteers in the HIV/AIDS domain is the accuracy of data that they gather. Fearing stigma and discrimination, there are efforts to suppress them. This is a scary situation especially among tribal communities where polygamy or promiscuity is found in higher numbers. Reports are received about patients who discuss their status in peer groups; however the same people present a different picture while interacting with others. Their Normal -As Anyone appraoch leads to irresponsible acts and further spread of the virus. Second challenge is about Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC). There are regions in India itself where grandparents are forced to raise their grandchildren as the parents are dead because of HIV/AIDS. Many of them are carriers of the virus and many have already turned positive. Brought up by grandparents, stigmatized and ostracized by the society, these children have all reasons not to reveal their real state of health. While due respect needs to be given to the sentiments of the victims of the disease, it is also critically important for the state to map the exact extent to which the virus has penetrated. And then act upon remedial courses. As a natural prediction, ICT can play a positive role. CSCs, in particular, can play the role of data aggregator, albeit with discretion. Data can be aggregated at the levels of Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centres (VCTCs), at blood sampling centres, at CD-4 centres, at drug dispensing centres, at NGO hubs, at PHCs and collated at CSCs. While you were away 1 The Latest in CSC 2 Almanac 3 What is Hot What is Not 3 How They Did it 4 From the States 5 SCA Enablement 6 Quotable Quotes 6 The importance of fine quality primary data cannot be more emphasized. The recent findings by UNAIDS is a case in point. UNAIDS observed that the number HIV/AIDS cases in India is highly misleading and inaccurate. For obvious reasons, the voluntary organizations working in this area have a tendency to exaggerate the numbers. Government and other state agencies working in the field have their reasons to dumb down those findings. And the truth lies somewhere in between. This is where an ICT-driven data collection at the grassroots level comes in to play. And CSCs are the best available media. Choice Centres, in Chhattisgarh has initiated some movement on similar lines. Choice centres are not any extension of the state department of health. However, the centre operators regularly visit hospitals, maternity clinics and other institutions to collect the birth registers. They update the information on their systems. Get it authenticated using biometric access, and then load it on to the central server. Thereafter, any body can have a copy of his birth certificate by paying paltry Rs.20. In true PPP style, a lot can be done for HIV/AIDS too. Arun Varma

2 Finance Minister on the CSC Scheme: Budget Speech: Feb 29, 2008 CSC ROLL OUT STATUS -APRIL 08 CSC Rollout LOI Issued Jharkhand, WB, Haryana, Bihar, Tripura Gujarat, MP, Assam UP, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Manipur CSC Cumulative CSC SCA Selected Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh, J&K RFP Issued Meghalaya, Mizoram "Information Technology: Government's forward looking policy is driving the growth of Information Technology and Information Technology Enabled Services. I propose to enhance the allocation to the Department of Information Technology from Rs.1,500 crore in to Rs.1,680 crore in A scheme for establishing 100,000 broadband internet-enabled Common Service Centres in rural areas and a scheme for establishing State Wide Area Networks (SWAN) with Central assistance are under implementation. A new scheme for State Data Centres has also been approved. I propose to provide Rs.75 crore for the common service centres, Rs.450 crore for SWAN and Rs.275 crore for the State Data Centres." CSC ROLLOUT STATUS March 2008 Status State MSA signed Assam LOI Issued Tamil Nadu, Manipur SCA Selected Himachal Pradesh Pre bid Meeting Meghalaya RFP issued Meghalaya, Mizoram CSC review Meeting DIT, State Govt & Meeting in DIT on March 11, 2008 SCA Apr 08 Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Punjab, Kerala, Andaman, Lakshadweep, Daman&Diu, Dadra&Nagar, Karnataka, Pondicherry Delhi, Chandigarh, Goa not included in the above list The Implementation sketch Ruchira Mukherjee 113, The first installment of government revenue support has been released to 26 states. 2. West Bengal was first state to sign MSA, Jharkhand and Haryana followed suit 3. Together these three have rolled out more than 3900 CSCs on ground. 4. Certification of these rolled out CSCs have started in Jharkhand and Haryana with nearly 400 CSCs certified. 5. Bihar, Tripura, Gujrat, MP and Assam have signed MSAs resulting in CSCs in implementation stage. 6. Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur and Uttarakhand Governments have issued Letters of Intent along with Tamil Nadu. These states will soon be signing the MSA to cover around CSCs. 7. Orissa Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have completed the SCA selection process. Jammu and Kashmir has decided to appoint J&K Bank as the SCA without any tendering process considering the uniquness of the state. 8. Manipur is the only state to receive a single bid in response to the CSC RPF and has qualified to be selected as the SCA for the state. 2

3 9. Meghalaya and Mizoram are in RFP issued stage, taking the number of issued RFPs to Nineteen covering 93,000 CSCs. 10. Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Chhattisgarh are ready to issue RFPs. All the states of North East except Tripura have decided to integrate the already existing Community Information Centers (CICs). 11. Rajasthan and Punjab had already issued RFP and were in the process of bid evaluation but due to technical reasons both the state have decided to cancel the RFP and go for re-bid. 12. Few states that are yet to take a start on CSC are the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshwadeep, Daman and Diu, Dadar and Nagar Haveli. 13. Kerala has already Akshaya centers operating, which needs to be upgraded to CSCs; however the terms of integration are still under discussion between Central and state Government. 14. Karnataka is implementing the Nemmadi Telecentre project, whose integration modalities are being worked out. 15. Delhi, Goa and Chandigarh have started implementing CSC-like schemes. PRAGYA KENDRA CSC in Jharkhand The United Nations e-readiness report 08 Vashima Shubha There is much apprehension about India s slipping position in e-readiness survey published by the United Nations e- Government Survey From 87 th rank in 2005 India has moved down to 113 th position this year. However, before taking a view, we must understand the assessment criterion and its implications on developing nations. This year s Survey looks at the issue of connected governance from the perspective of how governments manage and how they should manage their back office processes. The Survey therefore, examines the idea of connected governance as the means to achieve maximum cost savings and improved service delivery. This Survey focuses mainly on the government to citizen (G to C) and government to government (G to G) aspects of e-government. Although, this current Survey captures some elements of government to business (G to B), it is a relatively small part of the Survey. All of the 192 Member States were assessed in The e-government readiness index used for assessment is a composite index comprising of three measures (i) Web measure index, (ii) Telecommunication infrastructure index and (iii) Human capital index. In addition to these measurement there is an e-participation index for the year 2008 vis-à-vis the 2005 ranking aims to capture the dimensions of government to citizen interaction and inclusion, by assessing the extent to which governments proactively solicit citizen input. Web Measure- The web measure survey assessments were based on a questionnaire, which allocated a binary value to the indicator based on the presence/absence of specific electronic facilities/services available. The primary site was the national portal or the official government home page of the Member States. Where no official portals were available, other governmental sites were assessed. The Telecommunication infrastructure There are five primary indices relating to a country s infrastructure capacity as they relate to the delivery of e-government services: 1. Internet Users /100 persons, 2. PCs /100 persons 3

4 3. Main Telephones Lines /100 persons 4. Cellular telephones /100 persons 5. Broad banding /100 persons Human Capital - The human capital index is a composite of the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio, with two thirds weight given to the adult literacy rate and one third to the gross enrolment ratio. The data for the adult literacy rate and the gross enrolment ratio was drawn primarily from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This was supplemented with data from the UNDP Human Development Report. It is worth noting that in the 2008 Survey, there are no countries in the top 35 from the African, Caribbean, Central American, Central Asian, South American and Southern Asian regions. The high cost of deploying a robust infrastructure capable of handling egovernment applications is one reason for this discrepancy. In addition, many developing countries have been unable to fully implement their e-government policies, mainly due to other competing pressing social issues that need to be dealt with in the context of tight budget constraints, such as: health, education and employment, to name a few. Fostering Indo-African Cooperation AN Indo-African summit was held in New Delhi from 19 th -21 st March Several African Country Representatives and Indian Government officials-including Commerce Minister Mr. Kamal Nath attended the conference. The focus was to foster cooperation on development of Infrastructure, ICT for e-governance, education and health and Capacity Building. Confederation of Indian Industry organized the conference. CSC Newsletter as a unifying agent Dinesh K Tyagi Stimulating an all round debate and enabling CSCs to become an integral part of the governance thinking process at various levels has been one of the challenges for all of us in the CSC team. CSC for us has been a movement encompassing passion and commitment with a view to allow the citizens especially those living in rural areas to reap the benefit from better services. One of the steps taken by us was to start a CSC newsletter for sharing development and experience in CSC implementation.the newsletter has completed one year and I would like to congratulate the editorial team lead by Arun Varma for the effort made in sustaining the interest within the team despite odds and problems they faced. The newsletter was rejuvenating for the team to continue to strive for improvement in taking the CSC movement forward. As the scheme is being rolled out in the States; we are faced with new challenges of sharing information amongst a larger canvass of stakeholders. There has been examples of SARK Systems, an SCA in Haryana, developing the subscription model for greater community involvement, Srei in West Bengal setting its own connectivity infrastructure, One CSC in West Bengal able to generate an income of Rs in one day, AID in Jharkhand using the community radio for creating awareness and the Jkharkhand cabinet approving the proposal for utilizing the CSC by various government departments in collecting information and for other works/surveys. Sharing of such information would strengthen the CSC movement. We have therefore decided to circulate the newsletter to all the state government officials, SCAs and central government ministries. The editorial team task would be to make the newsletter achieve the overall objective of advocacy, learning, inclusiveness at various governance levels and interesting reading for various stakeholders. We would constantly attempt to improve the quality of delivery based on the feedback and responses. We believe that wisdom can be enhanced by reflection, imitation or by experience. Let us work together to share experiences through the instrument of newsletter and facilitate in evolution of a connected society. 4

5 MARCHING AHEAD Monisha Borthakur After completion of eighteen months since it was approved by GOI, the CSC is a familiar scheme all over the country now and the State Governments are geared up to launch the programme matching with their existing initiatives. The beauty of the scheme is that, it is open to capture the diversity and varied features of the States; and these are being factored in, whilst developing the state-wise implementation roadmap. As we all know, the scheme was started with a mandate to launch 100,000 rural kiosks across the country, but the actual numbers would cross the targeted figure and we would be having around 113,000 CSCs. Out of this, the SCAs have already been finalized for setting up of around 93,000 CSCs. Here, it is also worth mentioning that, every attempt has been made to reach out across the country in a uniform manner- touching every corner of the country, no matter how challenging or tough that area may be. For example, upon due considerations of the special features of the State, J&K has selected the J&K Bank as an SCA for establishing 1100 CSCs in the State, and upon due modifications, six Northeastern States have completed the SCA selection process and the remaining two States are in the final stage of issuing the RFP. They are unique from the perspective of development intervention and there is a strong relationship between the environment and the livelihood of the mountain population. The challenge is to throw up different thoughts and different models and different ideas, which would have the adaptability and acceptance both by the people and by the SCAs. In terms of actual rollout, nearly 4000 CSCs have been rolled out till date spreading across four States. Understanding the vastness and the complexity of the project at the ground level, it would take more than what it was thought of, to achieve the completion of rollout within the defined timeframe. To understand the implementation issues and the support to be provided to the implementing agencies, the DIT held a meeting with the selected SCAs of the States where CSC rollout is in progress on March 08. SCAs like Comat Technologies, 3i Infotech and UTL e-gov are to rollout as per stipulated schedule. Haryana would be the first state to complete the rollout by end April In some cases, the reasons for delay are mostly due to space constraint, lack of sensitization amongst the government officials at the district and below level, poor connectivity, power shortage, problems between the consortium partners, getting the right kind of VLE, inadequate manpower at the district level and also the law & order situation in some States. Dialogues with various players are already being carried out from the beginning of the CSC scheme understanding that, a sustainable CSC can only emerge out of continued partnerships with a range of service providers, technology vendors, academic institutions, community organisations etc. - both from the public and private sectors. Positive responses have been received and commitments have come from various stakeholders to make the project a success. Ekal Seva Kendra - CSC in Haryana 5

6 SCA enablement in Jharkhand Sudhakar Sathyanaryanan The first two quarters were focused on introducing various Service Providers for the physical rollout of the CSCs and linking the SCAs with the Service Providers who could use the CSC network for delivery of their services and distribution of products. April. The students would be paying Rs.1200/- for the 6 month long course. Some other Services soon to be launched through this pilot kiosk are Railway ticket booking & mobile recharge, General insurance and Banking services. From the campaign While the above is still being continued for the new SCAs, the NLSA has initiated a pilot in states where rollout has commenced. One pilot location has been identified in Jharkhand, Haryana & Bihar to demonstrate the potential Service tie ups and build revenues for the CSCs. In Jharkhand, the pilot location is Dahijor in Deoghar District. The SCA for this zone is Zoom Developers. The site selection was done in consultation with the SCA. For connectivity, BSNL Data card is being used. The VLE is actively making the village database. Another important component in making a center viable is awareness creation among the villagers. For this a Gram Sabha was conducted in the Village to explain the various services being offered through the Pragya Kendra. IT education is a service which is high in demand. Ten students have already enrolled for IT training. The first batch is to start in Quotable Quotes Arun Varma Vashima Shubha Monisha Borthakur Roy Mathew NLSA CSC Project IL&FS- Common Services Centers Project PMU Office,4th Floor, Electronic Niketan, Department of Information Technology, 6, CGO Complex, New Delhi Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny. - Carl Schurz ( ) As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. - Bill Gates 6