MeitY asks home ministry to let rural service kiosks function

New Delhi: The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has requested the home ministry to allow more digital kiosks to function in rural areas during the nationwide lockdown that has now been extended till May 3. There are 3,70,000 such digital kiosks — called Common Service Centres — across the country. They can help in disbursing essential services such as withdrawals of government subsidies sent directly into Aadhaar-linked bank accounts under schemes such as the PM-Kisan. Currently, only 50,000 of these centres are operating due to restrictions by the police. Union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, told ET that the strong network of the CSCs can be helpful in times like these, especially in rural areas. “The only problem is that police are stopping them. We are working on it. We are taking it up with the home ministry,” he said. At present, only around 18,000 CSCs carry out banking-related services while 15,000 of them process transactions through the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS). Dinesh Tyagi, CEO of CSC e-Governance Services, told ET that the centres that are operational are already processing 1,00,000 withdrawals through AEPS, totalling transactions worth ₹ 13 crore in a single day. “Around 2,60,000 CSCs are enabled to carry out AEPS transactions. If all centres are given the go ahead, it will help those living in far-flung areas to access government money and services without going too far from their homes during the Covid-19 crisis,” said Tyagi. The centres also help in telemedicine, undertaking 300-400 sessions every day with a total of 10,000 sessions in a month, including free of cost sessions for animals as well. Some of the centres, which house units for making female hygiene products, have turned to making face masks for local residents. Tyagi said CSCs, which also function as the last-mile connection point for the government’s fibre network BharatNeT, have seen requests for 3,20,000 new fibre to home connections compared to just 50,000 earlier. The usage of data accessed through WiFi and fibre connections through the centres has also doubled from 2.7 terabytes earlier to 4.9 terabytes per day.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2yjMGBe