Having rolled out 55,000 of the planned 100,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs), the government at both the levels i.e. State as well as at Centre is banking on the national e-Governance Plan (NeGP) to enhance the reach of e-governance in the country.

To make the power of e-governance penetrate further into the country, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) has now planned to set-up additional 150,000 CSCs to cover all Panchayats as well. The CSCs will deliver services under the Bharat Nirman providing support to other flagship programmes such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and National Rural Health Mission to name a few.

Moreover more than 100 public services such as registration and filing of returns by corporations under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, e-filing of Income Tax returns as well as refunds by Department of Income Tax, e-payment of Direct and Indirect Taxes through 28 National Banks, e-Services for Pensioners through Pensioners’ portal are available online. Some states have also computerized land records to deliver computerized Record of Rights (ROR), registration of property and conversion of paper based driving licenses to Smart Cards.

The ICT Ministers of all the states along with Union Communications Minister, A Raja discussed the progress of this initiative at length.

Mr. Raja said, with setting up of CSCs and solving the last mile connectivity hurdle, common man has also to be empowered to reap the benefits. In order to make the access and use of technology and technology enabled services pervasive, the Government has brought out a GNU/ Linux localised desktop distribution, titled Bharat Operating System Solutions (BOSS), targeting to Indian requirements with Indian language support and is expected to meet the various needs of e-Governance and e-Education.

The public-private partnership mode adopted for the project has resulted in manifold increase in the interest as well as implementation of e-Governance projects by the industry has been witnessed. MCA21, Passport and CSCs are shining examples of participation by the Industry in the delivery of Public Services.

Speaking on the occasion Shri Sachin Pilot, MoS, C&IT called for taking necessary steps to intensify the pace of implementation of NeGP. Referring to challenges related to CSCs and connectivity issue, he said the task of the DIT is to provide broadband access to all CSCs. As there is a direct connection between the broadband connectivity and growth digital inclusion of rural areas will greatly contribute to economy, he added.