The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : 1,000 rural Common Services Centres soon

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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

1,000 rural Common Services Centres soon

Special Correspondent

Its pilot run successful

Sixty-two services had been identified
Initial roll out of ICT Academy will be in Madurai

CHENNAI: Soon after the conclusion of the State Assembly session, around 1,000 rural Common Services Centres (CSC) and ICT Academy in Tamil Nadu (ICTAT) will be inaugurated in different parts of the State, said officials in the Information Technology Department on Friday.

“The pilot run of CSCs has been successful. Currently, the service providers are plugging the gap to provide full-fledged services and are negotiating with other players to include as many services as possible. Around 1,000 CSCs are ready for inauguration next month and another 1,000-1,500, a month later,” IT Secretary P.W.C. Davidar told The Hindu.

3i Infotech and SREI were granted permission to set up 4,400 and 1,000 CSCs respectively in different parts of the State to provide Business to Citizen (B2C) and Government to Citizen (G2C) services.

Currently, some of the entrepreneurs are providing internet facility, booking of railway, bus and cinema tickets among other things.

Addressing the inaugural session of a student seminar in Chennai organised by Computer Society of India, Chennai Chapter, Mr. Davidar said that they were in the process of unleashing a whole lot of e-services for common man through CSCs.

Sixty-two services had been identified and the State Government was working with 10 departments for development of applications. These CSCs would have a unique brand identity and logo.

“Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has gone online. We have to move the database from the client server to central server to have web-based services. It will happen soon. Telephone bill payment is being accepted by one of the service providers. Though there has been a delay in commissioning all CSCs, we would like to complete the rollout within the next six months. This would be followed by introducing the services in the urban areas,” he said.

Mr. Davidar said that the ICTAT was a joint initiative of Central, State governments and industry. The initial rollout would happen in Madurai followed by other districts.

“The State and Centre will play the role of facilitators. Cognizant, TCS, Dell, and CII along with others are part of it. The syllabus and content have been finalised and we also appointed M. Shivakumar as full time chairman. The Academy will conduct three to four day advance courses for the trainers,” he added.

Santhosh Babu, managing director of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, said that they have leased their Perungudi premises to the ICTAT.

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