Article:
Common Service Centres Extend Passport Services to Rural Areas
Recently, the Common Services Centres (CSC), a pioneering initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), has obtained approval to streamline and oversee Passport Seva Kendra kiosks in rural territories. This is a significant step ahead in making vital services reachable to the rural populace of India through the accessibility of the CSC.
About the Common Service Centres
Launching in May 2006, the CSC is an integral component of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). Its inception resulted from the government’s emphasis on introducing e-governance at a vast scale, as explicitly stated in the National Common Minimum Programme. The primary objective of the CSCs is to furnish high-quality, cost-effective video, voice, data content, and services. These areas cover e-governance, education, health, telemedicine, entertainment, and various private services.
Part of the scheme’s strategy is to create a favorable environment for the involvement of the private sector and NGOs in implementing the CSC Scheme. This approach allows them to become active partners in advancing rural India’s development.
The Public Private Partnership (PPP) model envisions a three-tier structure comprising the CSC operator or Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE), Service Centre Agency (SCA), and the State Designated Agency (SDA). The SCA manages a division of 500 to 1,000 CSCs, while the state government identifies the SDA, which runs the scheme’s implementation across the entire state.
Role of CSCs in Digital India Program
As a flagship program, Digital India carries the vision of transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge-economy. In this framework, CSCs play a critical role in operationalizing the three vision areas of the Digital India project: Digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, governance and services on demand, and, lastly, digital empowerment of citizens.
Launch and Impact of CSC 2.0
In 2015, the Government introduced CSC 2.0, which expanded the program’s reach to all gram panchayats across the country. This expansion aimed to establish at least one CSC in each of the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats. The model holds a service delivery-oriented entrepreneurship structure. It offers a wide array of services to citizens via optimum utilization of pre-existing infrastructures such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG), e-District, State Data Centre (SDC), and National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN)/BharatNet.
The approval for CSCs to operate Passport Seva Kendra kiosks in rural areas is a milestone that will enhance service delivery and bring vital government services closer to India’s rural populace.