Photo: V. Sudershan

Union Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj (right) with Home Minister Shivraj Patil coming out after attending a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a Rs. 5,742-crore scheme to set up one lakh common service centres (CSCs) in rural areas across the country that would offer a basket of Government to citizens and business to customer services.

The Centres would be internet-enabled with broadband connectivity with a speed of 256 kbps.

Announcing the decision, spokesperson of the Government said the scheme would be implemented as a public-private partnership, with the private sector picking up bulk of the expenditure.

It would contribute a little more than 70 per cent of the expenditure at Rs.4,093 crore. The Central Government and the State Governments' share, on the other hand, would be Rs. 856 crore and Rs. 793 crore respectively.

Roll-out by March 2008

The CSCs, which are expected to be rolled out over the next 18 months, by March 2008, were conceived as a strategic cornerstone of the national e-governance plan of the Government, which is envisaged to ensure anytime, anywhere web-enabled delivery of Government services.

The CSCs would provide high quality and cost-effective video, voice and data content and services in the area of e-governance, education, health, telemedicine, and entertainment.

Among other things, they will make available application forms and certificates and have facilities for payment of electricity, water, telephone bills. They will also offer services such as remote consultations for health care, e-enabled vocational training, rural BPO, agriculture price and weather information and market and supply chain linkages.

They are expected to create one lakh direct jobs and two lakhs to three lakhs additional indirect jobs, the spokesperson said.

Chaired by Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, the Union cabinet also decided to allow borrowings from NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) to bridge the funding gaps in meeting the rural roads targets of the Bharat Nirman programme.

The quantum of borrowings and the number of tranches in which they would be released would be decided by the Ministry of Rural Development.

The Ministry would prepare detailed operational guidelines for drawing of the funds from NABARD and their release.

The Central Road Fund Act would be amended through an Ordinance and subsequently a legislative bill to provide for the new arrangement.

The Cabinet meeting also decided to make changes in the law governing child marriage to make it more stringent, with higher punishments. For instance, under the new provisions, a male adult marrying a girl child faces rigorous imprisonment.

65 days bonus

The Cabinet on Thursday approved the payment of productivity-linked bonus equivalent to 65 days wages to eligible railway employees for the financial year 2005-06.

The payment would be on the basis of the formula approved by the Cabinet in its meeting held on September 23, 2000.

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