AISECT And Its Role In E-Governance
.JPG)
Siddharth Chaturvedi, Director, AISECT talks about the IT industry of India and his company's contributions in understanding the digital ecosystem of India. The interview with BW BusinessWorld saw an interactive discussion where Siddharth explains the demands of the IT industry in the country and AISECT’s work in the e-governance field.
Q. Has AISECT made any investments to contribute to the e-governance agenda?
AISECT, as an organization, has had a great experience of successful conceptualization and implementation of various programs to support activation of e-governance at many levels. We are a major investor in the successful realization of Common Services Centres (CSCs) across the country. CSCs are the access points for providing various digital services to the rural areas in India, thereby contributing massively to the e-governance agenda.
We were assigned the task of setting up 3173 CSCs in Madhya Pradesh, 1487 in Chhattisgarh and 585 CSCs in Punjab. We have already achieved 100% rollout targets in all the three states. These CSCs are delivering a variety of high-end services, like PAN Card registrations, PFRDA, telecom services, train and bus ticketing, premium payments, online educational services, banking, etc. With support from major nationalized banks, we are working towards financial inclusion of rural masses through CSCs. As a Business Correspondent (BC) to several banks, we have successfully set-up 4000 banking kiosks with 75 lakh accounts opened so far and transactions worth ₹ 5000 crores under our financial inclusion scheme. AISECT has also initiated mobile ATM services in association with its banking partners.
We are constantly working on fresh innovative projects like these for providing our bit of contribution to the national e-governance agenda.
Q. What are the loopholes in the IT sector, what does India need to concentrate on in terms of IT development?
It is a known fact that India is one of the top IT service providers in the world economy. Despite sound credentials, this setup has its own share of glaring loopholes.
Firstly, Indian IT sector is highly dependent on business received from companies doing their primary business outside India. The negative impact of policy and perspective changes in their countries of operations often results in disturbances in the business of these companies, which in turn affects their IT counterparts. Recent examples are of US protectionism and Brexit. These events had nothing to do with India but caused major down-swirl in the IT sector here.
Secondly, the Indian IT sector is still very highly concentrated in IT hubs like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, etc. The presence of IT sector is not so significant in other parts of India, which is concerning because it marginalizes employment opportunities and technical exposure to certain regions only.
Thirdly, the quality of IT products in Indian companies, despite improving rapidly, is not up to the desired levels. Aspects like Artificial Intelligence or Robotics Process Automation are yet to mature in Indian industry as per universal standards. Problems like these arise due to lack of innovation incubation in universities and innovative ideas with respect to technology.
I believe, a simplistic approach needs to be adopted to evolve the IT industry further. Many ongoing projects, like the Digital India campaign started by Prime Minister Mr Modi, can set new benchmarks in Indian IT growth story. It is the best solution because it tackles the situation up front; by educating masses on multifarious uses of IT tools in our day to day life.
Q. What are the major skill development programs most essential for the country?
In India, there has been a major impetus on the skill development programs for last 5 years or so. There is an urgent need to mainstream skill formation in the formal education system, and at the same time for development of innovative approaches towards skills creation outside the formal education system.
There are various skills oriented programs that are running at national and regional levels that are contributing to skill development in a variety of ways. If you ask me to mention names, the most successful ones as per me are PMKVY, DDU-GKY, AY –NLUM, NAPS, DGT –MES and various SSDMs. PMKVY is a great initiative with ample budget and reach. It is reaching out to around 10 million youth from various central and state skills missions.
I’m hopeful more skills development schemes will be outlined in the coming days with an evolved approach, enhanced budget and increased reach to rural and suburban regions.
Q. What are the contributions provided by AISECT in developing NeGP (National e Governance Plan)?
We, as an SCA organization, are committed to continuous efforts towards the fulfilment of the objectives of NeGP. These efforts provided very satisfying results and AISECT has received various accolades for the same.
One such project is the AISECT CSC Project. Common Services Centres (CSCs) are envisioned as the front-end delivery points for the Government as well as for the provision of private and social sector services to rural citizens of India in the remotest corners of the country.
We have worked hard over the years to set up thousands of CSCs throughout the country. These fully functional CSCs are now providing a large array of services to the common people. We have helped several government officials and representatives of various organizations, who have shown a keen interest in our CSC model, with time to time information on working and successful implementation of our different projects. In the Year 2011, the Govt. of Madhya Pradesh initiated online registration of farmers for wheat procurement. Our CSCs participated in the process and performed exceptionally well. In 2012, these CSCs successfully completed the job of data entry in National Population Register. AISECT CSCs have been entrusted with the job of UID enrollments and have been very successful in their responsibilities. Till date, more than 125 enrollment centers have started functioning and more than 50000 citizens have been enrolled.
In future, we want to continue making meticulous efforts in the realization of India’s e-governance agenda, providing new and sustainable solutions to enhance the rural growth.
Q. What is the business idea of AISECT?
Our business idea is very simple – to bridge the ICT and skills gap between urban and rural India, empower people, generate employment for the youth and unfold entrepreneurship based initiatives to create an inclusive society. We pioneered the Multipurpose IT Centre Model in India wherein the existing infrastructure of an IT Education Centre is used to offer numerous services including skill development, capacity building, information window, sale of allied products and services, e-Governance, banking and insurance services, etc. Ours is a self-sustainable, demand led model which reflects the demand side of communities for various skills and services required in the unorganized sector. To ensure sustainability and scalability, an entrepreneurial network was set up involving a host of individual entrepreneurs across the country. Today, our organization is India’s biggest entrepreneurial driven network at the district, block and panchayat levels.
Q. What are the contributions provided by AISECT in developing NeGP (National e Governance Plan)?
We, as an SCA organization, are committed to continuous efforts towards the fulfillment of the objectives of NeGP. These efforts provided very satisfying results and AISECT has received various accolades for the same.
One such project is the AISECT CSC Project. Common Services Centres (CSCs) are envisioned as the front-end delivery points for the Government as well as for the provision of private and social sector services to rural citizens of India in the remotest corners of the country.
We have worked hard over the years to set up thousands of CSCs throughout the country. These fully functional CSCs are now providing a large array of services to the common people. We have helped several Government officials and representatives of various organizations, who have shown a keen interest in our CSC model, with time to time information on working and successful implementation of our different projects. In the Year 2011, the Govt. of Madhya Pradesh initiated online registration of farmers for wheat procurement. Our CSCs participated in the process and performed exceptionally well. In 2012, these CSCs successfully completed the job of data entry in National Population Register. AISECT CSCs have been entrusted with the job of UID enrollments and have been very successful in their responsibilities. Till date, more than 125 enrollment centres have started functioning and more than 50000 citizens have been enrolled.
In future, we want to continue making meticulous efforts in the realization of India’s e-governance agenda, providing new and sustainable solutions to enhance the rural growth.
Q. Where do you see AISECT in the next 5 years?
We have continuously reinvented itself in terms of exploring new domains & sectors and will continue doing so. We have aligned ourselves with a number of Government schemes and programs such as Digital India; Skill India; Make in India & Start Up India. We also plan to add products and services to our portfolio which are synergistic with our model as well as expand promising verticals in a faster manner. A couple of our immediate objectives include infusing more technology in our operations and having a younger team heading critical parts of the operations. We intend to collaborate and work hand in hand with the Government and the industry wherever possible so as to realize the Prime Minister’s vision of a Skilled and Digital India. Last year, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, we launched a Women Entrepreneur Cell named ‘Pehchaan’. It is an Entrepreneurship Development Centre for women entrepreneurs in the AISECT network. We are now making rigorous efforts to promote entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship through this cell. We are also on the verge of launching new University campuses in multiple states.
