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
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