E-government’ is the new motto being chanted across India. It allows for the opening up of government processes and enables greater public access to information. The benefits to citizens and businesses from on-line delivery of services include convenience (location and time) and shorter waiting periods. In addition, e-government systems also lead to greater transparency, resulting in reduced administrative corruption.
State governments across the country are attempting initiatives to benefit the rural population but are faced with challenges that include poor connectivity of communication technologies and lack of skilled manpower for maintenance; non-availability of relevant content that can be easily consumed by the common man and underdeveloped human capacities (literacy, social position etc) to harness and sustain the initiatives etc.
The villager is typically dependent on a range of government services: information on and employment in government projects; customized information such as land records and birth certificates; approvals, such as for ‘below poverty line’ status, and grievance redressal; health, education, entitlement and other social services; mandatory services: taxation, updating land and population databases; exchange services: postal, banking and utility services.
Issues such as lack of awareness among intended beneficiaries, the limited use or absence of technology and the fact that a handful of corrupt officials control access and oversee the distribution of public records and funds, result in government services not reaching the end citizen. Another important deterrent for the average rural individual to avail government benefits is the fact that the onus is on the citizen to understand what government benefits he is eligible for.
At Comat, we partner with various state governments to ensure information access of government pro-rural programs and policies are made available to the end-user. The Comat Rural Business Center (RBC) provides information to the local citizen free of cost and in a simplified format educates them on the benefits they can avail from the government. It is our vision to establish a rural society where people can govern themselves and participate in the social and economic development process through viable use of government services in their day-to-day life.
In Karnataka alone, we service over 50,000 customers each day for Government services. 4 Lakh citizens’ access land records and 3 Lakh access other government schemes and certificates every month from our centers. Comat has liberated rural citizens from the clutches of touts and middlemen who manipulated the system by enabling a transparent delivery system that removes corruption at the ground level. With digitization of services and elimination of manual intervention by the local Government offices for service delivery, the waiting period has reduced drastically. In the state of Karnataka alone, over 10 Million families have benefited from this simplified access to Government services.