Kerala - Alappuzha   

State to seek Central aid for Akshaya CSCs

ALAPPUZHA: The State will seek more Central funds as financial grant for its Akshaya Common Service Centres (CSCs), Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said.

Speaking at the distribution of financial assistance to the CSCs and the State-level launch of the State IT Mission’s Malayalam computing project at Kanjikuzhy, near here, on Sunday, Dr. Isaac said funds currently allocated from the Centre for the CSCs were highly inadequate, mainly due to the ‘absurdities’ in Central norms for deciding the funds for each centre.

Policy makers at the Centre had no idea of the social diversities between Kerala and other States. In other States, one Akshaya centre was enough for six villages, but in Kerala, where each panchayat had at least 25,000 people, this measuring principle was not applicable. However, funds were allowed as per this norm and with what Kerala was getting from the Centre now, only 227 out of the 2,200 Akshaya CSCs in the State could be given financial aid, he said.

Dr. Isaac also said he would be meeting Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, to request that Kerala be considered to be a pilot State where the Unique ID project would be introduced.

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