KOLKATA: Union Minister for Information and Technology and
Communications Ravi Shankar Prasad said rural post offices across the
country will also function as common service centres (CSCs) providing
e-services.
He said this while asserting that the postal department had a crucial
role to play in bringing in digital revolution in the country.
"Our vision of digital India is to ensure that from a mason to barber
to a tyre puncture repairer, all can access newer avenues of growth
using communications equipment like a smart phone," said Prasad while
inaugurating the revamped building of Bhowanipore post office here.
"We are also committed to developing e-commerce, e-education and
e-health. This is the larger vision of digital India. And in this
digital India initiative, rural post offices have a very crucial role to
play.
"We have decided that all the 1.30 lakh rural post offices should
also become common service centres (CSCs) to further provide services,"
the minister added.
Implemented under the National e-Governance Plan and formulated by
the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the CSCs are
ICT-enabled front end service delivery points at the village-level for
delivery of government, financial, social and private sector services in
the areas of agriculture, health, education, entertainment, FMCG
products, banking, insurance, pension, utility payments etc.
Prasad said he expected the Reserve Bank of India to grant payment license to the proposed Post Bank of India by July.
"We expect to get the RBI nod by July. With 1,54,000 post offices the
new initiative will usher in a financial revolution across the
country," he said.
Hailing the services by the postal department, Prasad said it has
done a business of Rs.500 crore in the year in e-commerce besides
opening over 52 lakh accounts under the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna
receiving over Rs.1,000 in deposits.
"Whatever, be the decline in services, people still respect the
Indian Railways and the postal services. I urge you all to build upon
that respect and contribute towards the growth of the country," said
Prasad, urging the employees to contribute towards the government's
initiative to modernise the postal department.
Prasad also said state-run BSNL was also on the road to recovery.
"Now BSNL is running into losses in excess of Rs 8,000 crore. But in
2004, it earned a profit of Rs 10,000 crore. So we decided to revive it
... BSNL already has added 47 lakh new customers and its revenue has
risen by 2%," he said.
The minister also said there would be 100 crore mobile connections in the country in next few years.
"In a country with a population of 125 crore, we now nearly 101 crore
phone connections of which 98 crore are mobile phones. In the coming
few years, we will have over 100 crore mobile phone connectivity across
the country," Prasad said.
"Studies show that a country with more broadband connections has greater impact on the GDP growth.
"So we are bringing national optical fibre network connecting over
2.5 lakh gram panchayats across the country, we are bringing in
broadband revolution," he added
Source : The Times of India