Priya Nair

Centre to set up kiosks on a public-pvt partnership model

Mumbai , July 25

Getting a birth certificate or paying telephone bills can be quite a task in rural areas and could take days. But very soon these services will be available in villages at the click of a mouse, as in the cities.

The Government of India is planning to set up one lakh service centres in rural areas by 2007 under the National e-Governance Plan of the Ministry of Information Technology.

These service centres, in the form of kiosks, will be run on a public-private partnership model. The aim is to have one kiosk for every six villages.

Network of outlets

"We are planning to do this through the entrepreneurial mode. We are looking at a network of outlets in rural areas to provide government services. As it is not cost effective to provide only government services, we also want to include private services. This will also increase the outreach," Mr R. Chandrashekar, Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, said.

The kiosks will provide government services such as issuing of caste certificates, birth certificates, land records, payment of utility bills, payment of taxes and even filing Right to Information applications.

Private services

Private services could include micro credit, purchase of air, railway or movie tickets, distance learning programmes, health services by huge hospital chains or even the local medical practitioner. The private partners tying up for offering services could include banks, hospitals, educational institutions and airlines. These kiosks could even be used for business process and outsourcing activities, such as data entry.

Project outlay

The rough outlay for the project is Rs 5,500 crore over a period of four years, which includes capital expenditure and operational expenditure. Government support would be one-third of this amount with the rest being borne by the private partner.

The government has selected IL&FS as the national level service agency. The infrastructure development and finance company will assist the Government in carrying out the competitive bidding process and all other activities related to pre-implementation as well as implementation of the scheme.

In some areas the kiosks may be housed in the post office or the gram panchayat. The Government is also planning to involve local self-help groups and NGOs in the operations of the kiosks.

"It is not a commercial project, but a developmental project. So we want people rooted in the community to be involved in it," Mr Chandrashekar said. "We also want to create an opportunity for the villagers to earn money through these kiosks."

Structure

The scheme will be implemented through a three-tier structure. The first level will consist of the kiosk operator, or the franchisee; the second level the service centre agency, or the franchiser, covering about 100-500 kiosks; and the third level will comprise the agency designated by the State Government. This agency will help facilitate the implementation of the scheme within a State.

The Government will not provide capital, but will ensure revenue support. This means a part of the fees charged for the government services would go to the kiosk owner.

If the government services fall short, then fees from the private services would make up for the shortfall.

"The idea is to optimise the use of infrastructure and minimise outgo. We introduced the PPP model because of challenges in structuring and in mobilising money," Mr Chandrashekar said.

As there are already 15,000 kiosks running in some parts of the country, the scheme would be started in some of these, he said.

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