NEW DELHI, Oct 24:
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said he will write to J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti asking her to make more State-Government services online to support the Common Service Centre (CSC).
“They (CSC owners) are not getting G2C (Government-to- Citizen) services. I will write to Mehbooba Mufti that I am with these kids and your Government too should stand by them. They should get G2C service. I will even write to Governor of J&K,” Prasad said.
The Law and IT Minister was addressing J&K Village Level Entrepreneurs conference (VLEs) organised by CSC e-Governance Services India.
CSC makes available Government services to people in rural areas online like ration card, birth certificate, train tickets and online form submission. Recently, Government has started tie-up with private companies to increase business opportunity at CSCs.
Prasad said that when digital services touch and impact human lives in J&K then there will be new dawn in the State.
The Government is expanding services at CSC to support them, Prasad said, adding that Patanjali has started selling products through CSCs and is looking at business of around Rs 10,000 crore from sales through CSCs in next 4-5 years.
“He (Ramdev Baba) has informed me that in coming 4-5 years, he will do business of Rs 8-10,000 crore through CSCs,” Prasad said.
He said that Uber taxi service needs drivers in lakhs and they are in tie-up with CSC to appoint drivers online.
“When I became Minister, there were 80,000 CSCs and now there are 2.46 lakh CSCs. We want to make it 2.5 lakh. Every village panchayat should have 1 CSC,” Prasad said.
He directed CSC e-Governance CEO that 10,000 CSCs should be opened in J&K where the number is only 1983 across 542 village panchayats. There are 6261 panchayats in the State.
Government is also distributing LED bulbs under a scheme of Power Ministry through CSCs.
A CSC owner, Mahzabeen, from Kashmir valley said that she has been able to sell 2,000 LEDs in a day and there is huge potential to earn from sale of LEDs.
Meanwhile, participants from Kashmir protested over the issue of continued suspension of internet services in the Valley for over 100 days.
The incident took place after IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had finished his speech and left the venue of the meeting.
The main grouse of the participants from the Valley was that the Minister had left the venue without hearing their plea and hardships due to continued clampdown on internet services.
Agitated protesters were heard shouting that the Government’s digitisation programme was a farce as the “Kashmir valley has seen no internet connectivity for more than three months.” “How will you provide (Digital) service without Internet connectivity?”, one protester asked.
“Why do you see us Kashmiris differently? We have not come to eat…If we have some problem where will we share it. If you have called us, it is our right to speak. Is it a sin if we share our issues with Minister?,” said one of the participants.
As the participants from the Valley were sharing their problems with the media, one Government official intervened and asked the reporters to stop their interaction and cover the conference.
This led to heated arguments between the officials and the participants leading to chaos and sloganeering.
CSC e-Governance Services India CEO Dinesh Tyagi later said, “the protesters calmed down afterwards. They have raised issue of non-availability of Government services to citizens in the State and Internet connectivity issue on which the Minister (Prasad) has assured that he will write to State Chief Minister (Mehbooba Mufti) and look into the issue.”
Tyagi said that around 580 Village Level Entrepreneurs from Jammu and Kashmir, who run CSCs, participated in the conference. (PTI)
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