National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), which is a part of the National Common Minimum Programme, accentuates the need for bringing information and government services to the doorstep of the citizens. Access to information, backed with relevant infrastructure and services, can not only allow rural villagers to improve their quality of life but also support and supplement their existing incomes in a sustainable way.

“India lives in its villages”, mindful of this fact and giving essence to NeG Plan, Chandigarh Administration decided to extend ICT based services, which were being provided to urban citizens, to its rural citizens. A rural citizen has to face a lot of harassment due to unavailability of service delivery in the villages and is required to make multiple visits for availing a single service and that too after standing in long queues and the wait extended from a few days to few weeks for the service to complete. The Government offices are spread across the city and a lot of time is spent on unproductive task like travelling, depriving the citizen of a day's labour. Administration, being under-staffed and over-worked coupled with lack of transparency, was helpless leading to unnecessary time delays for the rural citizen. These reasons led to the conceptualisation of the project “GRAM SAMPARK — Rural Knowledge Centres “.

Vision

The vision for this project is to create a knowledge-based society through extensive use of ICT as a medium for effective interaction between the Administration and the rural public so that exchange of information and access to government departments is speedy and easy, leading to a better quality of life.

Objective

Continuing its commitment to bridge the digital divide, especially amongst the rural population, Gram Sampark centres are being established to empower the rural community and catalyse social change through modern technologies. One of the main objectives of this citizen-Centric Centre is to provide a hassle-free and transparent one stop solution to the common citizen for better turn-around time in receipt, processing and issue of services

Roll out

A strong planning and a phased implementation strategy were adopted by Chandigarh Administration for the project. Under the initiative, 14 centres are planned to be setup in villages across the city of Chandigarh. Department of Rural Development helped in identifying some of the unused Panchayat buildings, to setup Gram Sampark Centre. A government supervisor is stationed in each centre and serves as an authorised signatory for various services. All sections of the society like poor, needy, patients, farmers, students, employees etc are served from these centres.

First Gram Sampark centre, at village Khudda Jassu, was made operational in May 2007 and since then 9 more centres have been made operational, remaining shall soon start functioning. The citizens are able to avail all the 20 G2C and 5 B2C services at these centrally located centres. These Centres are also emerging as Rural Knowledge Centres as rural citizens have an access to the huge amount of information. Services are provided free of cost and rural citizens can also register their grievances, file their applications under RTI and seek appointment in government hospitals. In its one year of operation there have been nearly 60 thousand transactions involving a revenue collection of around Rs 4.58 crores. The footfall at these centres is steadily increasing, thus reflecting its popularity and the convenience it has brought to the lives of citizens.

Some of the services available at Gram Sampark Centers

| Department | Services | | :------------------------------ | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Excise & Taxation | § Payment of taxes | | Chandigarh Transport Undertaking | § Issue of Bus Passes | | Social Welfare Department | § Issue of Senior Citizen Card § Issue of Disability Identity Card § Disbursement of pension for old age persons, widows and disabled persons. | | Engineering Department | § Payment of Electricity Bill § Booking of Tubewell for irrigation in Rural Area | | Births & Deaths Registration Department | § Issue of Birth & Death Certificates | | Municipal Corporation | § Payment of Water & Sewerage Bills § Open Space bookings § Community Hall Bookings | | Health | § Doctor's Appointment for patients to GMSH and GMCH | | Chandigarh Police | § Tenant Registration § Domestic Servants Registration § General, Sticker and Postal Challan | | Treasury | § Sale of Stamp Papers § Sale of Stamps and Special Adhesive Stamps | | Chandigarh Housing Board | § Chandigarh Housing Board - Sale § All deposits for dwelling Units of CHB | | GOI Services | § Passport Application Submission | | B2C Services | § Telephone Bill Payment - Ÿ BSNL WLL & Landline Bill payment Ÿ HFCL- Connect Ÿ Airtel -Mobile Ÿ Airtel- Landline Ÿ Spice |

One of the main aspects of this Citizen-Centric Centre with state-of-art facilities is to bring government closer to citizens by providing transparency and efficiency in government-rural interface. Services like acceptance of Grievances and RTI applications and provisioning doctor's appointment in hospitals make life simpler for the common people. Equipped with a robust MIS, the center also facilitates a better decision making and quick reconciliation of Treasury collections. Operating six days a week i.e. from Monday to Saturday between 8 AM-8PM, the centre is a one-stop solution to rural citizen for multitasking and better dissemination of information.