Common Services Centres (CSCs) as an approach to bridge the digital divide: reflecting on challenges and obstacles

Abstract

Purpose: Despite the increasing technological capabilities and its affordability, a significantly large proportion of developing nations’ population are still lacking resources to own basic information and communication technologies such as computer and internet. This suggests that majority of the citizens from developing countries (e.g. India) are also not able to access and use emerging electronic government applications and services. This is leading to a further and bigger digital divide gap that already exists between rural and urban as well as economically less and more able population. To reduce the widening digital divide, India has innovated Common Services Centres (CSCs) as means to deliver public services electronically to citizens at the village level. This viewpoint paper aims to discuss some of the challenges and obstacles of such CSCs and to offer some recommendations for their effective implementations and sustainable operations. Design/methodology/approach: This is a viewpoint paper that is based on authors’ awareness of the context as well as knowledge and issues relevant to the research topic. A number of appropriate and current citations have been utilised to illustrate the current state on the topic as well as to support authors’ arguments presented in this paper. Findings: The paper identified a number of key issues relevant for effective implementation and sustainable operation of CSCs. The authors present their views and recommendations related to the following key issues: connectivity problems, lack of or delayed rollout of government to citizen (G2C) services, demotivated village-level entrepreneurs due to lack of G2C services, low computer literacy, lack of awareness about services and facilities, lack of adequate training and support, poor provisioning of an effective infrastructure, lack of support from the concerned government officials, inaccessible locations, burden of high investment, corruption at the government level, lack of skilled manpower to run the CSCs, lack of power supply, language barrier, lack of space, problem with maintenance and management of connectivity network and problem caused by the Naxalite and anarchist activity. Originality/value: The discussion and recommendations presented in this paper would be valuable to various agencies (both from public and private sectors) as well as policymakers for effective implementation and long-term sustainability of CSCs. The approach discussed in this paper offers an effective way to diffuse e-government applications and services in other developing countries (particularly resource-constrained nations from African, Asian and Latin American regions).