Govt likely to spend Rs 10,000 cr in setting up 1 lakh digital villages in 5 years

The government is likely to spend Rs 10,000 crore in setting up one lakh digital villages across the country in the next five years.

Common Service Centers (CSCs), under the Ministry of IT and Electronics, is in the process of setting up 700 digital villages, or digi gaons as they are called and expected to be completed by March this year, CSC e governance services Ltd CEO Dinesh Tyagi told DNA Money.

The announcement of setting up one lakh digital villages was made during the Interim Budget last week and is apart from the 700 already in the making.

An investment of about Rs 10 lakh is required for turning one village into a digital one.

"A new scheme will be formulated to set up 100,000 digital villages and then allocation will be done. CSC will set up 20,000 digital villages every year in the next five years," Tyagi said.

Conceptually, a digital village means it will have a digital banker, a digital doctor and a digital teacher with internet WiFi access point. The internet connection will be provided through BharatNet, the government's programme to connect rural hinterland.

"We will strengthen the existing CSC ecosystem – both in terms of infrastructure and quality of services. Every centre will have 5-10 computers for providing online services to citizens. There will be provisions of offering digital literacy courses for students as well as adults. Also, banking and pension services will be provided through use of technology," Tyagi said.

Apart from this, small units will be set up such as LED assembly unit, manufacturing of sanitary pad unit and photography lab unit, which will generate employment as well. A village level entrepreneur (VLE) operates and manages the CSC unit and is paid based on a transaction model. VLE needs to invest in setting up the infrastructure.

There are about 2.20 lakh CSCs operating in the rural areas, out of total 3.5 lakh across India.

The DigiGaon project started over a year back with an initial outlay of about Rs 423 crore over three years, which includes six months of implementation period and 2.5 years of operation, maintenance service and delivery phase. The project has been aimed at improving health and education services in rural areas, provision of community access to IT-enabled resource centre, WiFi and LED street lighting at a common place in the village will create conducive environment for digital literacy, financial inclusion and digital access to knowledge and services.

CSCs, an important part of the government's Digital India initiative, function as a single access point for delivery of services electronically including passport enrolment. It also enables people to access government services online such as train tickets, birth certificates, online submission of various forms and bills.

WIRING UP

• CSC will set up 20,000 digital villages every year in the next five years
   
• The DigiGaon project entailed an initial outlay of about Rs 423 crore over three years