Nandita Singh

Carrying forward the e readiness momentum in Andhra Pradesh is another project in the West Godavari district. The project, a district initiative spearheaded by the collector and district magistrate of West Godavari Sanjay Jaju, has brought eSeva to this largely agrarian district as a business model in the public domain in all the 46 mandals.

This self-employment driven eSeva project brings together a group of people under various schemes such as CMEY, SCC and women self-help groups and helps them in starting an eSeva center. "To ensure that the units are alive 50 percent of the financing has been done through the banks. The sense of ownership and loan repayment works as an incentive," said Jaju.

To make the units viable, the cost of networking has been reduced to minimum. The units work offline and synchronization with the remote server is done once a day. Buoyed by its success, the existing 46 centers are now being ramped up to 96. That apart, 52 STD booths are being turned into kiosks called Rural Service Delivery Points (RSDP) which will be ramped up to 120 in the coming three months. And all these will be integrated with wireless LAN 802.11 architecture.

"This 10-month-old project has seen one-and-a-half lakh transactions and a turnover of over Rs five crore," informed Jaju. However, Jaju believes that it is the use of C2C services that will make the difference. Online auctions and biddings, mandi rates, matrimonial services are slowly becoming a part and parcel of life in the rural area.

"To build synergies we are collaborating with Azim Premji Foundation in Bangalore. The aim is to give computer enabled education to 12,000 primary school students through multi-media CDs," said Jaju.

60 centers have been identified for the purpose -- 46 e-Seva centers and 14 RSDP points. "Payment of electricity bills at the e-Seva centers was just a starting point. Now that the residents are acquainted with the center and the self-sustaining revenue model is in place, it is just a matter of adding services," said Jaju.

With G2C in place and C2C on the way, Jaju and his team is concentrating on B2C as well. "We are exploring the possibility of getting seeds directly delivered to the farmer. We are also talking to Hindustan Lever Ltd to deliver required products such as soaps and detergents directly to the consumer," said Saibaba, the DIO of National Informatics Center (NIC) who is also heading the operations of the project.

"Once B2C takes off, C2C the most challenging of all will also follow suit," believes Jaju. However, the project does not stop here. The five of the EkPanch (the electronic panchayat) services including birth and death registration and land records are being added to the existing eSeva centers.

Next on the agenda is computerization of all the 800 panchayats beginning with 200 big panchayats. These will work as a backend for eSeva and RSD centers through which services will be delivered.

"A three-computer eSeva center is being constructed on the urban eSeva model. Located not far from district headquarters Eluru, at Denduluru, this set up can act as a hub of wireless connectivity which will soon be established," said Jaju. This will make the set-up a two way process making other services such as village chaupal, etc. possible," he added.

Inspired by the success of this project the project is being launched in all the 54 mandals another district of AP - Kurnool on September 26.

(CNS)

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