Common Services Centres (CSC)

12Common Services Centres (CSC)

The governments around the world are leveraging advances in Information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance their service delivery mechanism to improve citizen satisfaction towards government and gain competitive advantage over the nations to attract investments. Government of India (GOI) has also recently approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) with the vision of providing all government services in an integrated manner at citizen’s doorstep at an affordable cost. It seeks to lay the foundation for the long term growth of e-governance in the country. NeGP is aimed at improving the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of government services to citizens and businesses with the help of ICT. It is structured on the philosophy of a centralized initiative with decentralized implementation.

One of the main infrastructure pillar that has been identified for successful implementation of NeGP is Common Services Centres (CSC)

An important dimension of good governance is the anytime, anywhere delivery of government services. One of the visions of the Government of Meghalaya has been the need to collaborate and integrate information across different departments in the state which would help in delivering prompt services to the citizens, businesses and other government departments, in a manner that simplifies government processes and aggregates different inter-related services amongst various departments.

Governments all over the world are striving to achieve good governance so that the benefits accrued as a result of advancement in Information Technology reach the disadvantaged sections of the society especially the rural poor. Government of Meghalaya has also laid a lot of emphasis on good governance, adoption of best practices and integrated delivery of information and services using the network of the Common Service Centres (CSCs).

The CSCs are envisioned as the front-end delivery points for government, private and social sector services to rural citizens of India, in an integrated manner. The objective is "to develop a platform that can enable government, private and social sector organizations to align their social and commercial goals for the benefit of the rural population in the remotest corners of the country through a combination of IT-based as well as non-IT-based services".

Thus the CSCs is more than service delivery points in rural India, it is positioned as a Change Agent - that would promote rural entrepreneurship, build rural capacities and livelihoods, enable community participation and collective action for social change - through a bottom-up model with focus on the rural citizen. Citizens can visit these centers and avail a number of Governments to Citizen Services made available through the state portal. Thus the reach of the government in providing efficient and quick delivery of services to the rural poor is enhanced through the State Portal and the Common Service Centers (CSCs).

Undertaking such a mammoth task calls for active participation and close interaction amongst various stakeholders such as State Governments, local bodies, opinion makers and agencies/ institutions involved or having interest, commercial or otherwise, in rural areas/ markets. Under the CSC Scheme, a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model has been proposed for undertaking this challenging task and addressing the related issues in the most effective way.

The various IT and non-IT services that will be offered include Government to Citizens (G2C), Business to Consumer (B2C), and Business to Business (B2B). However, the primary focus will be on G2C services like birth and death certificates, land registration, utility bill payments (electricity, telephone, mobile etc), form downloads etc. Apart from these CSCs will be acting as a medium for providing information or services on informal education, e-learning, licenses, permits, crop insurance and more. They will enhance the accountability, transparency, and responsibility of the government towards the needs of the citizens. CSCs will offer and monitor all types of training and extension programs, giving a platform to the rural sector to access regional, national and international markets. Creating primary data collection centers and data warehouse will be the source of authentic statistical data used for various analytical and decision support purposes.

Rainbow CSC

• Meghalaya is the ‘abode of clouds’
• Rainbow- the most spectacular spectrum of light on earth
• Symbolizes Positive Energy
• Represents also 7 Districts of the State
• 7 Colors represent the 7 Thematic Services offered

The menu card of the services offered looks like below: