17 October 2011
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Taking another step in making things easier for beneficiaries of various schemes, the government has decided to make aid available to them through micro ATMs to be installed in common service centres (CSCs) or Maha e-seva kendras. The beneficiary will get the aid through the ATM using is UID number.
Recently, social welfare department had given micro ATMs to two colleges in the city for allowing students to obtain scholarship money. Some ATMs were given to colleges in rural areas of the district.
Beneficiaries of various government schemes like Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana and those who get scholarships and unemployment allowance, etc had to run from pillar to post to get the money. They are harassed by touts and clerical staff. By routing the money through the CSCs the beneficiaries will be spared a lot of trouble.
Under the CSC model the government ties up with a private company for setting up CSCs in a region. The company in turn appoints franchisees for running a centre. Reliance Communications has been given the contract for Nagpur division. The government will provide financial aid to each CSC operator and part of the cost will have to be borne by the operator. The cost of the micro ATM is Rs 32,200 of which the government will pay Rs 11,500.
While the decision is welcome the problem is that the government has started very few CSCs so far. It has set a target of starting 11,822 CSCs including 1,336 in urban areas. Most of the CSCs are in Pune, Satara, Solapur, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Mumbai, Thane, Sangli, Kolhapur, Nanded, Aurangabad and Raigad districts.
Reliance Communications has been given the contract of this project in Nagpur division. So far it has started only one centre in Nagpur district at Butibori. The city does not have any CSC. The centre at Butibori is not functioning properly because Nagpur district administration is yet to implement e-governance fully. The Butibori centre only accepts applications. The operator brings these applications to the deputy collector in Nagpur, gets them processed and takes them back to the Butibori centre.
The centres have been asked to provide 43 types of services ranging from project affected persons (PAP) certificate to renewal of arms license. Business-to-consumer services like railway tickets, utility payments, banking and agriculture will also be made available through these kendras. But, due to administrative apathy people of Nagpur district are being deprived of these services.
