Status of Common Service Center Program in India: Issues, Challenges and Emerging Practices for Rollout

The Common Service Centre is a 1.2 billion USD initiative by the Government of India. It is an integral pillar of the Government’s National e-governance Plan. The project was started in the year 2004 with the vision to develop these centres as the front-end delivery points for government, private and social sector services to rural citizens of India in an integrated manner. However as on 31st May, 2010, six years after the initiation of the project, only about 50 percent of the States had reported success in achieving 70 percent rollout status of these centres. Even the successful States were being plagued by issues which were hindering the operation and threatening the sustainability of these centres. In this paper we have discussed the current status of implementation of the CSCs across the nation and the pertinent issues that are being faced by the various stakeholders in the project. It was interesting to find out that though the country wise rollout had not yet reached the cent percent mark there were some states that were doing well, compared to others, despite the fact that some of these failing states were the first to initiate the exercise.We have also conducted field studies in the states of Jharkhand,Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya in order to understand the ground level issues and challenges hampering the implementation of these centres. This paper is an attempt to understand the various challenges and bottlenecks that are being faced in making these common service centres sustainable. Given that the CSCs are designed to provide the last mile linkage to G2C and B2C services, the importance and impact of these centres are immense and the program has the potential to overturn the issues related to accessibility that pulls back the sizeable percentage of the populace. It is however, noteworthy that these perceived benefits to the citizens from this project can only be accrued when these centres are operational. Thus it becomes imperative to study the factors that are hindering the setting up and the functioning of these centres. The study also reveals that there was lack of fool-proof planning at the government’s end in terms of having no structured framework for roll out and no risk mitigation plan in place for a project of this dimension. Moreover, the study shows that there has been a substantial evolution in the business model (based on PPP) that was being used initially across various states in the country to a business model (based on PPP) that is emerging to be more successful and sustainable than what was initially planned for.

USAGE PATTERNS AND CHALLENGES OF MULTIPURPOSE COMMUNITY TELECENTRES IN MALAWI

Domestic digital divide denotes the divisions between the haves and the have-nots of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) within a country. To bridge the domestic digital divide, the government of Malawi has been establishing telecentres since the early 2000s. It is now two decades since the first telecentre was opened. However, three important questions persist: Who uses the telecentres in Malawi? How are the telecentre used? What are the challenges in the use of telecentres? Using data from users, telecentre management and within telecentres, the study shows that there is uneven access for multipurpose telecentres in the country, as users are predominantly male, young, relatively educated and belonging to low-income levels; that users mostly used photocopying, printing and library services; and that, at one telecentre, a good number of users accessed the internet and computer services. The main challenges that users experienced included inadequate books and computers, the high cost of some services, lack of information in local languages and lack of internet-searching skills. The multipurpose community telecentres experienced poor infrastructure, lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic delays and demand that the telecentres should be free to the communities they serve. The study shows that telecentres are failing to achieve the objective of bridging the digital divide

Challenges and proposed solutions towards telecentre sustainability : a southern Africa case study

Access to information through telecentres is essential for social and economical growth in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. While many governments have established telecentres as means of bridging the increasingly wide digital divide in rural or unserved areas, their corresponding sustainability or continual operation is in doubt due to various challenges. These challenges to information and communications technology (ICT) access has resulted in many of the rural population being unable to exploit the potential of promoting social economic development through innovative business solutions and education. In this study we evaluate the sustainability of telecentres in Zambia and South Africa and propose possible solutions to the problems that telecentres face. Strictly speaking, we focus on two telecentres; Comsol telecentre in KZN, South Africa and Kanyonyo Resource Centre in Mongu, Zambia

Telecommunications Technologies: Deployment in Developing Countries

This paper examines some policies pursued in developing countries for the provision of telecommunications services in rural areas. These policies significantly differ from those typically implemented in developed countries in their fundamental objectives, the technological strategies deployed and the market and institutional environments they rest on. A review of some representative experiences suggests that thinking about public utility reforms in this part of the world is quite a challenging exercise. We point out some economic and institutional characteristics of these countries that we believe normative analysis of the reforms should explicitly take into accountTelecommunications; Developing Countries; Universal Access

Internet Enhancement of the Role of Civil Society in Promoting the Rule of Law in Transitional States

The Internet has the potential to play a key role in the way civil society organizations promote the rule of law in transitional states.  In many states several barriers stand in the way of utilizing the Internet for this purpose.  Challenges that arise include technological deficits and poor infrastructure, socio-economic barriers, government hostility to open information, and civil society organizations unable to reach populations.  With the development of new technologies, and increased openness of information, civil society organizations will be better positioned to embrace the use of the Internet to promote the rule of law by helping citizens receive information, and facilitating communication between citizens and government

Digital Divide and its Economic Implications in Asia

The use of Information Technology (IT) in Asia has grown rapidly in recent years. Yet the United Nations claims that not everyone is benefiting from the IT revolution and that there is now a new type of poverty, information poverty, that is taking shape. This paper deals with the digital divide and its economic implications in Asia. It is believed that access to IT can serve as a good tool to help the economies of developing countries of Asia, particularly the rural areas where the majority of the population resides. IT can bring benefits and opportunities to the rural population who is often marginalized. The first part of the paper aims to confirm the digital divide at the global, regional and national levels. The second part analyzes the implications of digital divide on the rural economy. The last part examines the various measures adopted in Asia to correct the digital gap including some case models. Hopefully, these experiences would be useful to policy makers in many developing countries in bringing IT to as many of their population as possible and getting all the possible benefits from its use

Policy reform, economic growth, and the digital divide - an econometric analysis

Rapid growth of Internet use in high-income economies, has raised the specter of a"digital divide"that will marginalize developing countries, because they can neither afford Internet access, nor use it effectively when it is available. Using a new cross-country data set, the authors investigate two proximate determinants of the digital divide: Internet intensity (Internet subscriptions per telephones mainline), and access to telecom services. Surprisingly, they find no gap in Internet intensity. When differences in urbanization, and competition policy are controlled for, low-income countries have intensities as high as those of industrial countries. While income does not seem to matter in this context, competition policy matters a great deal. Low-income countries with high World Bank ratings for competition policy, have significantly higher Internet intensities. The authors'findings on Internet intensity implies that the digital divide is not really new, but reflects a persistent gap in the availability of mainline telephones services. After identifying mobile telephones as a promising new platform for Internet access, they use panel data to study the determinants of mobile telephone diffusion during the past decade. Their results show that income explains part of the diffusion lag for poor countries, but they also highlight the critical role of policy. Developing countries whose policies promote economic growth, and private sector competition, have experienced much more rapid diffusion of mobile telephone services. Simulations based on the econometric results, suggest that feasible reforms could sharply narrow the digital divide during the next decade for many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The authors'review of the literature, also suggests that direct access promotion would yield substantial benefits for poor households, and that cost-effective intervention strategies are now available.ICT Policy and Strategies,Knowledge Economy,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

The scope of using Information & Communication Technologies (ICT’s)For the development of Emerging Economies like India

It was felt that there is a need to carry out a study on some innovative ICT platforms so that I could learn about the benefits of the ICT initiatives in rural areas. The emphasis was to examine whether the community people benefited from these project initiatives. Though the benefits of ICT platforms have been generally stated, specific assessments have not been made. It has been proved at the global level that ICT can help in poverty reduction in number of ways. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the innovative applications of ICT in rural development. The synopsis, being an information technology related topic and a global issue as well, focuses a on the ongoing ICT practices for Development going on, with more emphasis on the projects in Gujarat and some review about National and Global projects as well. The study can prove to be a manual for even a layman to understand the facts, utilities and revolution that can be brought about by the said title. As a result, some chapters revolve around the practices going on world over and give a detailed look at the practices being initiated in India

Telecommunications Technologies: Deployment in Developing Countries

This paper examines some policies pursued in developing countries for the provision of telecommunications services in rural areas. These policies significantly differ from those typically implemented in developed countries in their fundamental objectives, the technological strategies deployed and the market and institutional environments they rest on. A review of some representative experiences suggests that thinking about public utility reforms in this part of the world is quite a challenging exercise. We point out some economic and institutional characteristics of these countries that we believe normative analysis of the reforms should explicitly take into accoun

Access and Use of Information by Rural Communities in Arid and Semi-arid Lands (ASALs) of Kenya: the Case of Maarifa Centres

Telecentres are community knowledge centres that offer shared access to information and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the benefit of community development in alleviation of poverty. This article presents a case study that explored the extent to which rural communities in ASALs region of Kenya access and use information from the Maarifa centres (MC). The objective was to examine access and use pattern of information by ASAL communities benefiting from the MC. Using a multiple case study, 80 respondents drawn from five Maarifa centres were interviewed. The respondents were users of the respective Maarifa centres. The Maarifa centres selected  were namely; Nguruman MC in Magadi, Mutomo MC in Kitui, Isinya MC in Kajiado, Ng’arua MC in Laikipia and Sipili MC in Baringo. Further, five focus group discussions were conducted with the respondents. Key informants interviewed included, Director of Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN); Programme Coordinators of Maarifa centres; Officers of the Communication Authority of Kenya and the ICT board of Kenya.  Major findings indicate that rural communities appreciate Maarifa centres as a source of information. The respondents valued Maarifa centres as intermediaries for accessing information for socio-economic development. The biggest achievement is the use of Sokopepe, an online knowledge management platform which can be accessed through computers or the mobile phone. The challenges that hinder effective access and use of information are mainly infrastructural which slow down information uptake and internet access. The study revealed that Maarifa centres have addressed most of the community’s information needs of government information through access to e-government services; e-commerce, agricultural development and knowledge creation, resulting in improved livelihoods. Provision of these services was possible through collaboration of the government ministries and agencies, development partners, funding agencies and community participation. Keywords: Telecentres, Information access, Knowledge management, ASALs DOI: 10.7176/IKM/10-5-04 Publication date:August 31st 202