Can CSCs Evolve as Change Agents?

Common service centers (CSCs) were important part of India's e-governance drive. But unfortunately, the CSC network, which the state and the central government expanded, was very slow to respond.

CSCs are multiple-services-single-point model for providing facilities for multiple transactions at a single geographical location.

That's why there is now effort to infuse a whole new life into the vast CSC network.

INFUSING A FRESH LIFE

Looking at avenues which could turn around CSCs, on June 3, 2013, the CSC e-Governance Services India (CSC SPV) organized a workshop on ‘CSCs: The Change Agents in Agriculture Service Delivery,' to discuss and identify potential agricultural services to be delivered through the CSCs.

Under the national e-governance plan, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has set up more than one lakh CSCs across the country primarily in rural areas. In order to make these centers part of the process, ample stress is being paid on adding services so that people in the rural areas are able to get benefits.

In order to support CSCs at the grassroot level and develop a bouquet of services for CSCs, the CSC SPV has been organizing a series of workshops to bring all stakeholders together and develop frameworks for delivery of services to rural citizens.

The workshop was organized at the India International Center (IIC) in collaboration with the Media Lab Asia Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC) of India. It was managed by the Digital Empowerment Foundation.

The focus was on deliberating and identifying the potential agricultural services that can be delivered through CSCs. There is a need to analyze successful case studies so that these could be replicated in the similar situations at a faster rate. Realizing the basic requirements, CSC SPV is partnering with various institutions to extend the agriculture services in rural India through CSCs.

During the workshop, Dinesh Tyagi, CEO, CSC SPV, said, "CSCs can be used to provide agriculture services to farmers in the areas of enhancing agricultural production, improving market access, capacity building, and empowerment. The agriculture services are very relevant services in rural areas. Through this workshop, we are exploring possibilities of delivering better services in agriculture through CSCs and discuss the basic challenges."

EMPOWERING VLEs

Focused at enabling VLEs (village level entrepreneurs), the workshop tried to identify areas in the agricultural domain to help farmers. Present at the workshop J Satyanarayana, secretary, stated, "CSCs can play a crucial role in increasing the access to agriculture knowledge in rural areas. CSC network can be leveraged to provide a number of agriculture services. We need a multi-dimensional architecture. He emphasized the need to go beyond the pilot and scale-up proven agriculture services through CSCs. More importantly, we have to get appreciation from the farmers for whom the schemes are made."

Sanjeev Gupta, joint secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation, Government of India, said, "There are a lot of complications at the village level. Extensive use of ICT in agriculture is a must. The rise of the mobile phones and internet could be the most stunning changes for the farmers. Today, farmers are hungry for information. The agriculture community needs to be more innovative, coordinated, and focused to help poor farmers grow more. The integration of Kissan Knowledge Management System of the Department of Agriculture with the CSC network has begun. VLEs can provide agro advisory services through CSCs."

He added, "The Ministry of Agriculture is also on the verge of launching a one-stop portal for farmers, farmer.gov.in. The farmer portal can provide information on a wide range of subjects including crop protection, seeds, fertilizers, agriculture markets, pesticides, etc."

Dr GV Ramaraju, MD and CEO, Media Lab Asia, mentioned, "Media Lab Asia has developed technologies (eSagu, DEAL, Digital Mandi, aAqua, Agrosense, CAD etc) in the field of agriculture and livelihood generation. In agriculture, existing projects have been integrated and brought under integrated agri services program. These innovative models in agriculture are involved in imparting knowledge regarding sustainable agricultural production systems and environmental issues so that students can carry out research in the area of societal development by extending development in ICTs."

Speaking at the workshop, Dr Roshan Jacob, DM, Gonda, Uttar Pradesh, KISAN Software, presented the details of Kisan project in Gonda (Uttar Pradesh).

Jacob said, "Under the KISAN project, the farmers were registered with the Jan Sewa Kendra (JSK) across the district. The complete details of the farmers including his land, fertilizer requirement, seeds, pesticides, agricultural implements used by him, saving account number, Kisan Credit Card are registered and a receipt is handed over to the farmer. Once the fertilizer availability is ensured, the farmer gets a call on his mobile phone through Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) which informs him about the fertilizer availability at the nearest cooperative society and even private retailer. He is also informed about the date on which he can get the fertilizer on the fixed price."

Sanjeev Chopra, joint secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Cooperation, Government of India, pointed out the challenges towards adoption of new technology in the agriculture sector while chairing the second session of the workshop.

The workshop was attended by government officials, international organizations, service center agencies (SCAs), development professionals, private players, and the village level entrepreneurs who agreed to utilize the CSC network for delivery of various agricultural services.

Certain implementation and policy intervention issues were discussed and suggestions were made to address the same. CSC SPV will follow up with concerned agencies and enable a framework for engagement of all the stakeholders in providing agricultural services through CSCs.