Dr. Dinesh Kumar Tyagi is the Chief Executive Officer of Common Service Centre e-Governance Services India Ltd., a Special Purpose Vehicle under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Dr. Tyagi has had a distinguished record and belongs to Indian Administrative Services, which he joined in 1981 with Manipur-Tripura Cadre. During his tenure, he served as Secretary, Education, and Principal Secretary, Finance. He has also worked as Director in the Banking Division, Ministry of Finance. He was Custodian of Special Court, 1992 (Harshad Mehta Scam) in Ministry of Finance. He has been on the Boards of Syndicate Bank, United Bank of India and Indian Bank.

He also served as Director on the Board of various financial institutions such as Small Industries Development Bank of India.

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Dinesh Tyagi tells Marie Banu about Common Services Centers scheme, its mandate and how it is delivering digital and financial services to the last mile.

Can you telle us about the Common Services Centers scheme?

The Common Services Centers (CSC) scheme is an integral part of the Digital India Programme. Based on a unique business model that is rooted in the involvement of community and Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs), CSCs provide last-mile access to digital technology, digital literacy and host of G2C and B2C services in rural areas of the country. We have over 350,000 CSCs across the country, and 60,000 of these are managed by women entrepreneurs.

Who are the Village Level Entrepreneurs?

The Village Level Entrepreneurs or VLEs are the CSC operators. These entrepreneurs come from the community they serve. This provides a massive advantage to them as they are immersed in the context and know the community well with the ability to mobilize them in a campaign mode. This also enhances their credibility in the community significantly.

How is the CSC scheme connecting the rural masses to the digital economy?

I believe, Indians, inherently, have entrepreneurial skills and this untapped potential is being leveraged and channelized through the proliferation of digital infrastructure and a shift towards a digitally integrated economy. With grassroots penetration, CSC provides access to education through e-learning; health through telemedicine; and financial services through banking, insurance and digital payments at a nominal cost.

How is CSC contributing towards digital and social inclusion of underserved communities?

Education is one of the main focus areas of CSC. We provide access to school, college and technical education for underserved communities. For instance, children and youth can pursue studies through National Institute of Open Schooling by enrolling and remitting the admission fee online, if they have had to discontinue schooling due to local, social or personal issues.

We provide online admission facilities and even provide support for admission tests for Jawahar Navodya Vidyalaya. Over 25 lakh children enrolled for Navodaya Vidyalaya school admission last year. CSC also offers IGNOU courses and mock tests for banking jobs, police service, IIT entrance, and civil service examination. Recently, we have introduced an option for a student seeking admission in class 6 of Navodaya Vidyalaya to apply for a mock test by paying just 20 rupees.

We also do tele-medicine and have more than one lakh subscribers. We largely engage in providing homeopathy and Ayurveda consultations. Facilities for diagnostic and dispensation of medicine are also made available.

All CSCs are envisaged to be DBT – Digital Doctor, Digital Banker, and Digital Teacher. Haryana is a unique State where we have more than 450 services offered at CSC. Even taxes can be deposited here.

Any startup can access the CSC to deliver its product and services. We have evolved a policy to promote startups using our network and also encourage startups with rural innovations.

CSC is providing support for conducting the Economic Survey this year. How do you think it is equipped for this?

The 7th Economic Survey, covering 40 crore households, is being carried out by more than three lakh CSCs. For the first time, the Economic Survey (Census) is being carried out using mobile phone technology. This will be a paperless survey and the result of survey would be instantly available to stakeholders. We are proposing to the government to conduct Census at shorter intervals. The 6th Economic Survey took two years for compilation, but with 1.5 million enumerators trained and certified in data collection at CSCs, we are certain that we can do it sooner.

The Census, if conducted through CSCs using technology, would cost less and will make available data that is current and of high value for making informed policy decisions. Rather than doing Census once in ten years, CSCs can help the Government in conducting Census once in two years.

Following the MoU with Ministry of Panchayati Raj, how is CSC planning to transform all panchayats into ‘digital panchayats’?

There are over 250,000 gram panchayats in India. CSC has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj to transform all gram panchayats into ‘digital panchayats’. CSC will act as a catalyst in promoting Rural BPO in every gram panchayat. Gram Panchayat Bhawans will host CSCs so that all government services and social schemes are made easily available to villagers. Ministry of Panchayati Raj applications and data for all schemes and programmes that are run by the Central and State governments will be entered by the CSC personnel / staff.

All gram panchayat records will be maintained in digital format, and CSC will serve as digital literacy centres for elected representatives of gram panchayats. Online services to Gram Panchayats will be offered. We see this as a step forward in creating Rural BPOs in all gram panchayats.

What has been CSCs contribution in the delivery of financial and social services in rural areas?

Financial inclusion is an important area for us.

CSCs have actively participated in the Jan Dhan Yojana and opened about 50 lakh new bank accounts. About 30,000 CSC across the country are working as business correspondents and delivering various banking services to rural citizens. During financial year 2018-19, banking transactions worth Rs. 21,800 crore and insurance premium of all insurance companies worth Rs. 83,087.89 lakh towards premium have been collected by CSC. Pension products of PFRDA are also delivered. More than 50 lakh persons have been registered under PM-SYM and PM-KMY launched by the Government recently. CSCs will also support in extension of pension schemes to shopkeepers, traders and those self employed. Today, CSCs can help every person avail one or the other Government pension schemes and thus support the Government in promoting social security for all citizens.

We launched Aadhaar Enabled Payment Service (AEPS) with National Payment Corporation of India Limited (NPCI) which enables all CSCs to become inter-operable banking service delivery outlet. In this, any bank account holder can deposit and withdraw money, apart from checking balance. This has resulted in three lakh outlets providing financial services to unbanked and isolated rural communities and is probably the largest financial access point network in the world. There are a number of outstanding and inspiring stories that showcase how this initiative is bringing communities into banking system. For instance, there is a woman VLE in Haryana who disburses over Rs. one lakh in a day. Earlier, many rural people who got DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) into their account had to visit bank located 10 to 15 kilometers away in order to check their account details. Now, they use CSC as this is more convenient. There are even cases where people have not visited their bank for over two years now and meet most of the financial requirement through CSCs.