ICTs for community development in India - Going beyond the basic CSC model

IT for Change (ITfC) submitted a solicited paper on the role of Common Services Centres (CSCs) to the e-governance division of the Department of Information Technology of the Government of India. The paper briefly examines the CSC model of employing ICTs for community development, wherein one telecentre is being set up in every 6 villages around the country in a public private partnership (PPP) model. It suggests that the CSC scheme needs to be complemented by a more community­-oriented model of rural telecentres with a role in the overall social development of the village community. These ideas were initially presented at a workshop on the Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) project of the Government of India and the United Nations Development Programme that was held in Udaipur (Rajasthan) in November 2009.