In 2001, the Department of IT and Communications of Rajasthan collaborated with Aksh Optifibre Limited to develop an e-governance platform, called e-mitra, which was later renamed gramdoot. The mission of this project was to bring all government services under one roof. In addition, it aimed at building a secure payment gateway, providing transparency, and minimising the time, distance travelled and money spent by people to avail of these services. At present, 45 departments are under this scheme, including the departments of law, civil, police, education, public works, electricity, transport and industry.

Under this project, kiosks connected to the e-governance IT platform, are set up in villages and in urban areas, and anybody who owns a computer, printer and scanner is eligible to become an e-mitra franchisee. The franchisees are trained in the software and deposit a requisite sum, which becomes their credit limit, which is required for transactions. People come to the kiosks to pay their electricity, water and telephone bills, and to recharge their mobiles. Of late, banking services have also begun through these portals. The e-mitra franchisee collects payments online on behalf of various departments. There is a limit of Rs 10,000 for transactions for rural areas and Rs 100,000 for urban areas. The moment this limit is reached, transactions are stopped. Another sum has to then be deposited to continue transactions.

These services, which have been operational in Rajasthan for the past 10 years, are categorised as government-to-consumer (G2C) services, bank-to-consumer (B2C) services, and other government services. B2C services are expected to begin in January 2015. Account opening through kiosk banking has already started and the Bank of Baroda is taking a huge initiative in this respect. Major government hospitals in Rajasthan are also connected to these systems so that people anywhere in the state can register for OPD services online.

Under “other government services”, 250,000 Aadhaar cards were provided via e-kiosks in 2013. The state government is also coming up with Bhamashah ID cards, which are similar to Aadhaar but contain more information for giving benefits to people. Besides, once other banking services begin, all income under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) will be transferred to the banks accounts and people will be able to withdraw money from kiosks in their villages.

These kiosks have significantly reduced travel time and money spent by people for availing of these services. Earlier, people would need to spend about eight days, travelling about 500 km, to avail of such services. As a result, a person could spend Rs 8,500 on such transactions. With e-governance, people need to travel just 500 metres, and spend less than Rs 50 while taking advantage of a few services free of charge.

Before and after NOFN

Of the 3,500 kiosks currently operational in Rajasthan, 60 per cent are in urban areas, in Jaipur, Udaipur, Ajmer and Bikaner, and the remaining 40 per cent are in rural areas. On the present e-governance platform, 2G connection faces frequent disconnections and speed constraints while uploading scanned documents. It takes about 15-30 minutes for a customer to undertake a transaction.

The next phase of village connectivity will take place under the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project and there is still scope for 8,000 kiosks to be set up in villages. Fibre will reduce downtime to less than 1 per cent and enable data transfer speeds of 100 Mbps, which will help in faster uploading of documents. To provide electricity to run these kiosks, the Rajasthan government has installed 5,000 solar-powered systems at the gram panchayat level.

Conclusion

Aksh estimates that at least 50,000 km of cable is required to connect the 10,000 villages in Rajasthan. Further, to connect government offices, hospitals, police stations and schools, another 50,000 km of fibre will be required.  This connectivity will enable videoconferencing, which will, in turn, hold several advantages for e-governance, telemedicine, e-education and e-commerce. The NOFN project will also provide direct jobs for about 12,000 individuals as kiosk operators. Going forward, 75 per cent of new industries are estimated to come up in rural areas, which will drive the demand for high speed internet connectivity. Moreover, with more industries coming up, migration to cities will reduce. In sum, the NOFN is expected to trigger the next phase of development in rural areas.