The Hindu : Front Page : Company identified to provide Government to Citizen services

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Friday, Jan 04, 2008
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Company identified to provide Government to Citizen services

N. Anand

3i Infotech to set up Common Service Centres in 4 zones

CHENNAI: The State Government has chosen 3i Infotech to set up Common Service Centres (CSC) in four of the five zones in Tamil Nadu to provide internet facility as well as Government to Citizen (G2C) services.

Other players in the race were Reliance Communications, India Cements, CMS Computers and SREI-Wipro.

This is the second order for 3i Infotech after securing the Haryana Government order for 322 CSCs in Gurgaon.

In Tamil Nadu, it will set up over 4,400 of the 5,440 CSCs, except in the north east zone. The service provider for Vellore, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, and Tiruvannamalai will be selected soon. These CSCs will serve as a single window service delivery channel for providing government services of Taluk Offices, Collectorates, Registration Department, Transport Department, Civil Supplies Department and Municipalities.

Talking to The Hindu on Wednesday, Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) Chief Executive Officer, Kumar Jayanth, said that they would act as nodal agency for setting up of the CSCs to take forward the e-governance initiative of the State Government.

Four-year contract

“From now onwards, it is their project. They will operate from a small office space to provide internet facility and G2C services. These CSCs will be equipped with computers, web cameras, printers, scanners and fax machines. The CSCs will operate for a minimum of 8 hours a day. The service provider has promised to roll out the services in 11 months and their contract is for four years. By April-May 2008, we hope at least 4-5 departments will be ready with their database to offer their services in the electronic format,” he said.

As per the proposal, the service providers will set up CSC in one out of every three villages.

Other State governments prescribed one out of every six villages as the minimum requirement. “We could have asked them to set up CSC in every village, but we were not sure about the response and thus scaled it down to one in three villages. The timings will be determined by these players depending upon the nature of place they operate from,” Mr. Jayanth said.

Tendering process

Information Technology Secretary C. Chandramouli said, “This tendering process took an interesting turn with the service provider quoting in the negative. Earlier, we decided to provide them financial benefits to implement the project. However, the service providers have promised to pay us after deducting their charges.”

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