The government has invited tenders from service centre agencies (SCAs) — primarily corporates, NGOs and trusts — to set up such centres in 4,562 villages across the state. The tenders floated today will be opened in June.
Principal secretary, information technology, R.S. Sharma said the CSCs aim at transforming villages through the use of information and communication technologies and deliver a host of government and private services in the rural areas at their doorsteps.
Officials said the scheme would be implemented on a public-private partnership model wherein eligible entities can participate as an SCA responsible for developing and managing effective and sustainable business models. Central and state governments would provide financial support to the SCAs, they added.
According to IT officials, the CSCs would provide an electronic channel for the direct delivery of information and other services in rural areas. “It will instil confidence among the people about the government’s intention to uplift rural economy and also eliminate red-tapism, corruption and wastage of time, money and resources,” they added.
The SCAs would deploy appropriate communication technologies to provide Internet connectivity to the centres, which would be equipped with at least one computer, a printer, a scanner, a digicam, an UPS and a generator. The centres, which will work from 8 am to 8 pm, can also increase the number of computers.
The centres will have to provide all the e-governance services and utility bill collection services as delivered by the government of Jharkhand.
The centres would charge fees for the e-government services, as prescribed by the state government, which would, in turn, ensure pricing of transactions to make business viable for the VLE and the centre. However, the SCA would be free to decide the charges for the value-added services.
The tender also states that the commercial terms for revenue sharing with the state government for delivery of e-government services will be decided on mutual agreement once the bidder has been selected. Some village-level entrepreneurs (VLEs) would be preferred as the franchisees of the CSCs or have profit-sharing arrangements with the SCAs. The same needs to be detailed in the proposal submitted by the bidder.
The tender also states that village youth aged between 20-35 would be eligible for being a VLE. Preference would be given to those staying near the proposed CSCs. The minimum educational qualification for a VLE is matriculation and should be fluent in reading and writing Hindi apart from the local dialect.
Autor: Sanddep Sarkar
Quelle: The Telegraph, 25.04.2006
