COMMON SERVICE CENTER: THE KERNEL OF DIGITAL INDIA PROGRAM

It is not abstruse that fruition of Digital India Program is contingent upon Common Service Center. Digital and financial inclusion is the motif of the Digital India Program. Connecting the villages bereft of Digitization through Broadband and High Speed Internet for delivery of electronic services is the kernel of Digital India Program. Hence to reach out the benefit of Information Technology at grassroots level, Common Service Center are contrived as a reliable IT enabled network of Citizen Service Point connecting local population with the government, business, banks, education institution, medical establishment etc. CSC are the merging point for Skill India, Digital Literacy and e-commerce and one stop shop for all.
It is the largest and hence stupendous online service delivery channel in the world. It is a sign of armour-propre for India. India is endeavoring to bestow 1 CSC in every panchayat, accrediting 250000 access point for delivery of various Government to Citizen (G2C) services.

A Common Service Center in Hyderabad

CSC fecilitate three vision area of Digital India Program - Digital Infrastructure, Governance & Service on Demand and Digital empowerment of citizen. For the prosecution of the CSC program, CSC e-governance Service India Limited was incorporated by Department of Electronic and Information Technology (DeitY) to provide a centralised framework for delivery of services through CSC. A cardinal player for the success of CSC is VLE-Village Level Entrepreneur. A VLE is a CSC's honcho with strong entrepreneur capability and social commitment for stoutly providing various online public utility. District e-Governance societies (DeGS) are constituted to superintend the development of e-governance project. To disseminate scheme related information and for online monitoring of scheme, CSC portal (http://apna.csp-gov.in/) is contrived. Hence Digital Governance became ubiquitous.

SERVICES PROVIDED BY CSC

Education Services -
CSC plays a portentous role in fostering digital literacy. Some programmes are -

• National Digital Literacy Mission
•  Cyber Gram Yojana ( for minority community)
•  Course on Computer Concept etc.

CSC facilitates in bolstering financial literacy through programmes like -

• NABARD Financial Literacy Programme
• Investor Awareness Programme.

CSC embodies other educational facilities like

• NILIT services for online fees payment, online form submission etc.
• NIOS services for promoting open schooling in rural areas
• English for Aam Admi programme for teaching rural youth in a simple and interactive way.

17 lakhs nationals have been made digitally literate, and 1 lakh financially literate.

Financial Inclusion -
CSC coadjuted with Banks to enable itself to become banking correspondent agent/customer service point to deliver various banking and financial services e.g.-

• Deposit/Withdrawal/Remittance
• Balance Inquiry/Statement
• Kisan Credit Card
• Third Party financial product.

CSC has been validated by IRDA to work as an accredited intermediary to market insurance product e.g.-

•  Life/Crop/Cattle insurance
• Motor/Health/Personal accident insurance.

Currently, 3000 CSC are acting as BCA, 10 million accounts have been opened.

Work Shop on Financial Inclusion through CSCs

UIDAI (Aadhar) Services-
CSC acts as an enrollment centre of UIDAI to expedite Aadhar Project providing platforms where people can avail Aadhar based services e.g.-

• New Aadhar enrollment
• Biometric Updates
• Mobile/Email update etc.

CSC engaged as Aadhar authentication Service Agency to build and manage secure network connectivity to UIDAI central Identities Data Repository.
857 crore Aadhar enrollment, 45 lakh bio-metric and demographic data update.

Election Services-
CSC has signed MoU with ECI to succor election-related services e.g. -

• Application for names in rolls
• Printing of the card, name in electoral rolls, statement of application etc. 
• Complaint registration 

Health Services-
CSC health services endeavor to entail quality healthcare solution like-

• Tele-medicine
• Diagnostics service
• Generic medicine to masses in rural areas

e.g. Apollo Telehealth services activated in 10,000 CSC, SEHAT- Social endeavor in Healthcare and Tele-medicine.

A banner to promote CSC Health Services

Skill Development Services-
CSC caters for the rural youth with market-oriented skill  e.g .-

• Partnership with NSDC STAR Scheme
• Construction skill training
• Skill-based service- tie-up with Siemens and Hero Motocrop for the assistant motor mechanic training course, Rozgar Duniya portal etc.

More than 40,000 jobs are available on CSC Rozgar Duniya Portal.

With respect to the familiarity with Digitization, there is a profound lacuna between urban and rural population. Rural population enviously watch their urban counterpart.  Though Urban areas abound with IT infrastructure and digital amenities, there are impediments aplenty in rural areas.
An adage in this respect-

If a huge section of the population is left out then a huge calamity may befall all of us in the form of digital divide. If we don't spread this among the poor and in villages, our words of development shall ring hollow.

:- Prime Minister of India

 This led to the exigency of instating robust infrastructure in rural areas in order to ameliorate the laggard progress that has long deviled its inclusive development viz-a-viz urban areas. Hence it is germane to note that the major concentration of CSC is in rural areas, with urban CSCs constituting only 9% of total numbers. In this way, scheme exhorts rural population to come forward. Now, it can be said with certitude that the lacuna is in the town for the ephemeral amount of time.

SOURCE: CSC BROCHURE- REDEFINING GOVERNANCE IN INDIA THROUGH CSC