Need for Village IT Kiosks for G2C Deliverables

Establishment of rural IT kiosks is definately a great boon for the villagers as it has potential to change the way an ordinary villager does the business. The most important role of IT kiosk is, to become an interface between Government and Citizen (G2C) wherein the villagers need not go to the government offices situated at far flung places, rather they can get their job done in their village. We are aware that farmers have to be depenndent on the government for a large number of issues like

• Land related issues
• education and healthcare
• Various beneficiary schemes
• Certificateion of their status
• Complaints and disputes
• Licences, permits and NOCs
• Law and Order
• Irrigation and electricity etc.

The dependency on government is more in the rural area as compared to the urban area is because in urban area most of the services are provided by the private entreprises due to attractive business potentials, whereas in the rural area, due to poor purchasing power and inadequate economic activities there is absence of private entreprises therefore the dependence of an ordinary citizen is mostly on the government for all the issues be it education, banking, transportation, communication, healthcare, employement, basic infrastructure etc. So for all the aforesaid puposes there are several departments having been established to cater to various needs of rural citizen. Thses departments are located at different places depending on the nature of tasks and a huge government machinery is deployed upto the village level to serve the rural folks. Despite of the availability of a mamoth government machinery in the name of serving the ordinary citizen we all know the fate of an ordinary citizen. Even after 60 years of independence we find that our villages are still undeveloped and there is an ever increasing gap in the developement of urban and rural India as a matter of fact the graph of developement for rural and urban India is moving in the opposite direction for most parts of the country. Newer generations of the farmers are finding it uninteresting to remain in the farming and are migrating to cities increasing the slums. Apart from poor future prospects they spend a large portion of time in the labrinth of governement machinery to get their small things done. Some of the problems can be understood by the following examples

If a farmer needs loan (as he often needs due to high risk in Farming and inadequate returns) he shall either opt for taking loans from the money lenders at a very high interest rate very often ending up in becoming a landless laboures or go to bank. He has to get his land record documents, income certificate, photographs, etc. Certain documents are required from the government machinery which are sometime a herculean task and then making innumerable rounds to bank and mid it he has to spend a lot of time and money in obtaining all these inputs teherfore the cost of loan is very high which is a detering factor.

If a student has to go for admission in higher education he has to obtain cast certificate, domicile certificates from the government and to get these certificates he has to prove his basis of getting the certificates for which he has to make several rounds of different authorities, like TC/school leaving certificate of his father, cerfificates from patwari, residence proof etc. which has to be collected from different authority and such things are issued from taluka office which some times are situated as far as 15-20 Km.

There are several beneficiary schemes of various departments like agriculture, animal husbandry, social welfare etc. on which government spends a huge amount of money but an ordinary farmer newer get to know about it, only politically connected people get the benefits. Availing such beneficiary schemes are also very difficult as the farmers has to produce a number of documents obtained from various departments. Thus a major part of their time is spent on running from pillar to post increasing to the frustration.

Fortunately Information and Communication Technology provides the solution for all such problems where with the help of Village level ICT Kiosks can work as the citizen facilitation center for all the government department by integrating there front end into a single window service facilitation centers. This can save a lot of time, money and from harrasment to the farmers who can then focus more time in it's core area of improving his farming income and if he is saved from such harrasments he will certainly develop a new approach towards development with a positive frame of mind. Even ICT can help the farmers in knowing the newer cropping pattern and it's technology and getting the market linkages to get a better price of his produce

The good news is that in last 5-6 years various initiatives has been taken by various Government authorities like setting up Taluka level facilitation centre by revenue department in the state of Maharashtra called Setu, Village level Gramdoot Network in Wardha district, Sarita project by IGR in Maharashtara etc. But the need of the hour is to establish village level IT kiosk which shall be interface for all the government departments and the entities having the objectives of providing services in the rural area rather than seperate initiative by different departments at different level. Goverment of India taking note from some of the aforesaid initiative have come up with a mandate of 100000 CSC across the country which is an initiative must be waited and watched far as this has a potential to transform the rural scenario if implemented in it's true spirit.