Background 

The government provides services including healthcare, education, social support, and financial inclusion to the public. However, villagers and citizens in remote areas often struggle to access these services due to several constraints including inadequate infrastructure and inaccessibility. To tackle these challenges Government of India (GoI) initiated Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme in the year 2006 and revamped it in a newer avatar as CSC 2.0, in the year 2015. CSCs are physical rural tele-centres that serve as digital means of public service delivery to rural and remote locations where computers and internet are scarce or absent. CSCs have also been designed to promote rural entrepreneurship and community participation in rural areas.

About CSC and CSC 2.0 : The CSC scheme (referred in the study as ‘CSC 1.0’, for ease) had been launched in the year 2006 as a component of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) with a target to cover all six lakh census villages by one lakh CSCs being implemented through close coordination of several entities including Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) at the CSC level, Service Centre Agency (SCAs) at the area level and State Designated Agency (SDA) at the state level supported by a National Level Service Agency (NLSA).  The role and responsibilities of each of these entities of CSC 1.0 are described below:

• State Designated Agency (SDA): At the state level, the implementation of the scheme was being looked after by the State Designated Agency (SDA) that had to facilitate and provide requisite policy, content and other support to the SCAs. SDA facilitates the integration of existing ICT-enabled Government schemes into the Common Service Centers scheme. It also helps identify locations for CSCs, coordinates with other state departments, and facilitates capacity building and awareness campaigns within the State.

• Service Centre Agency (SCA): The prime driver of the whole CSC eco-system is the agency called SCA who is akin to a franchiser and employed through public-private partnership to implement the CSC Scheme in their specified areas of operations. The success or failure of the CSC scheme was deeply dependent on the business and financial capabilities of SCA to operate, manage and build the VLE network and business in its area of influence.

• Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE): The key to the success of the CSC operations was a VLE. The VLEs are responsible for the operations and the management of the CSCs at the village level who are appointed by service center agencies (SCAs). While content and services stay important for ensuring the success of a CSC but VLE’s entrepreneurial ability would also play an important part to ensure CSC sustainability. A good VLE is expected to have some financial strength, entrepreneurial ability, strong social commitment as well as respect within the community.

In March 2014, approximately eight years after the roll out of CSC 1.0, a formal assessment of CSC scheme was undertaken at the behest of Government of India (GoI). The assessment study revealed that the implementation of the initial version of the CSCs was facing several challenges such as lack of viability, sustainability, standardization, scalability, and quality of services. As a result, the erstwhile Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY), Government of India, launched the modified version of CSC scheme, referred as CSC 2.0 in the year 2015. 

The CSC 2.0 scheme was to be implemented by a special purpose vehicle (SPV), called CSC e-Governance Services India Limited (CSCSPV), created under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) (erstwhile DeitY), GoI. The revised version of the scheme, CSC 2.0 was conceived under the third pillar of Digital India program, called ‘Public Internet Access Programme’ and the scheme envisaged expansion of self-sustaining CSC network by establishing two and a half lakh (2.5 lakh) CSC centres at Gram Panchayat (GP) level. The scheme also encompassed strengthening and integrating the existing one lakh (1 lakh) CSCs of CSC 1.0 scheme. CSC 2.0 scheme enables VLEs to offer a wider range of e- services (Figure 1) through a unified Digital Seva portal (viz. digitalseva.csc.gov.in/web/services) provided by CSC 

SPV. CSC SPV provides a centralized collaborative framework for delivery of services to citizens through CSCs, besides ensuring systemic viability and sustainability of the scheme. These services provided under CSC 2.0 include several Government-to-citizen (G2C) services; Business- to-citizen (B2C) services (including banking, insurance, pension, bill payment, mobile recharge, ticket booking, e-commerce orders); Health and telemedicine services (such as health check-ups, diagnostics, consultations, medicines delivery) as well as Agriculture and rural development services (including soil-health card, crop insurance, Kisan credit card, e-marketplace) and so on ( Figure 1). 

Apart from these services, CSC 2.0 also handle various social schemes. Some of the popular national flagship programmes of the Government, being delivered through CSCs include Pradhan Mantri –PM Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY), PM Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), PM Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), PM Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA), PM Awas Yojana - Gramin (PMAY-G), PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), PM Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) and so on. CSC 2.0 also provide other central services including PAN, Passport, EPIC Printing, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and so on ( more about CSC services at https://jaankaari.csccloud.in). 

Various state governments in India have established and locally contextualised CSC scheme for providing several services in its rural areas. In the process, every state has given its own indigenous names to the CSCs such as CSCs in Rajasthan are identified as ‘e-Mitra’, in Gujarat as ‘e-Gram’ centers, in Kerala as ‘Akshaya Centres’, in Delhi as ‘Jeevan Centres’ and so on. Irrespective of the varied state variations of the CSC scheme, the ultimate aim in each state has been to help establish digital formats of public service delivery that would be less centralized and more citizen-centric in nature. In this study an empirical analysis of e-Mitra of Rajasthan state of India has being done to assess the effectiveness of CSCs in India.

About e-Mitra and e-Mitra Plus: e-Mitra is rural tele-centre initiative undertaken by the state government of Rajasthan.  It was conceived, in its nascent form, in May 2002 as a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) sponsored e-governance initiative but caught momentum across the state only in the year 2005. As claimed on the official website of the Government of Rajasthan (http://www.eMitra.raj.gov.in, accessed in July 2011), e-Mitra had intended to offer a wide variety of ‘citizen-centric’ G2C and B2C services including utility bill payments of water, bill and mobile charges through a single-window. Later, by the start of the year 2009, in certain parts of the state, e-Mitra got merged under the DeitY’s CSC scheme. Subsequently ‘eMitra mobile application’ (which is still operational) got added to provide a more convenient access to the citizens (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.gov.semt.rajeev.eMitrapayment&hl=en; 

Accessed on October 1, 2016).  The revamped version of e-Mitra, called as e-Mitra Plus, offers more features (eMitra. rajasthan.gov.in) than its previous version. Not just that, it boasts off delivery of all the services through user-friendly user-interface (UI), including use of touch-screens, biometric authentication for security and privacy (https://www.doitc.rajasthan.gov.in/ProjectDetails.aspx?ID=1046) and so on. It also boasts of presence of several user-experience (UX) features including centralized content management facility that allows the government to broadcast content related to new and existing schemes, facilities of cloud-based backups, as well as inculcation of a robust feedback mechanism that enables the users to rate and review the services and the service providers and many more. 

By assessing e-Mitra implementation in Rajasthan, the study attempts to apply design-thinking principles of citizen-centricity and citizen participation to assess the effectiveness of CSCs as a public service delivery means in India. For doing so, it was imperative to understand submissions of the literature (section 1.2) on these concepts of CSCs, Citizen-centricity, citizen participation and design thinking. 

Review of Literature

Citizen-Participation:  As is evident from above, citizen-centric approach mandates the adoption of a socio-cultural approach based on multi-disciplinary perspectives. For doing so the participation of citizens (community groups) becomes a pre-requisite (Malhotra, 2015). The literature reaffirms that PSD initiatives should be designed by closely identifying and contextually analyzing the social realities at the grassroots (Malhotra, Chariar and Das, 2011) and “…it is the users, the people in the system who are the experts when it comes to the design of social and societal systems of all kinds” (Banathy, 1996). Even Rao (2004, pp.268) states, “Grassroots consultation prior to initiating projects is essential: top-down approaches do not work”. Indeed, collaborative models of e-governance have always proven to be more sustainable in both rural context (Malhotra, Chariar, Das & Krishnaswamy, 2011) as well as urban contexts (Calzati, & Loenen, 2023). Upholding the premises that ‘citizen participation’ is imperative to achieve ‘citizen-centricity’ in public service initiatives, several researchers (for instance, Malhotra, Chariar & Das, 2014) have advised that varied community groups must be involved in the design of digital public delivery systems to ensure the sustainability of such systems. 

Design-Thinking: All these literary reflections around the basic philosophies of ‘citizen-centricity’ and ‘citizen-participation’ for designing sustainable initiatives eventually converge into, or maybe emerge from basics of ‘design-thinking’.  Design thinking is a “non-linear” (IxDF, 2016) and a user-centered approach for designing better products, services, and systems which is considered as a “highly effective framework for innovation” (Unda, 2021) An intense literature review (Rösch, Tiberius & Kraus, 2023) that is based on one hundred sixty-four scholarly articles on design thinking has systematically stated the definitions, characteristics, processes, antecedents, and consequences of design thinking for innovation. The study suggested that the major aspects of the design thinking process are observation, empathy, human-environment interaction, and employing a hands-on approach to creating innovative solutions for an organisation. Summarizing these learnings, one understands design thinking to be a user-centered/ human-centered approach to innovation that involves understanding the needs, preferences, and challenges of end-users in a more intense and qualitative manner.

This brief overview of the literature on varied aspects of the study leads to the basic premise of the present study that ‘citizen participation in the processes of designing public service delivery systems would ensure citizen-centricity’, which would in return lead to higher acceptance of such systems and hence make these systems more sustainable.

Methodology

Aim: To corroborate the basic tenet of ‘design thinking’ that ‘citizen participation is mandatory to ensure citizen-centricity’ in the context of digital public service delivery initiatives. 

Need for the Study: Ever since the National e-Governance Plan (2004) till the ongoing Digital India programme (2015-till now), CSCs have stayed as the digital means of public service delivery and core nuclei of rural e-government initiatives of India. Therefore, it is pertinent to confirm, both the citizens’ and policy makers’ perspectives, the citizens’ acceptance of the CSCs in fulfilling the governance needs and general aspirations of the rural citizens.

Objectives: To achieve the aim, the two-phased study attempts to achieve following objectives:-

1. To understand, from citizens’ perspective, the governance needs and general aspirations of the rural citizens.

2. To assess, if the CSC fulfill the governance needs and general aspirations of the rural citizens, both from the citizens’ and policy makers’ perspective.

3. To understand, the extent of rural citizen participation inculcated while designing CSCs, both from the citizens’ and policy makers’ perspective. 

4. To identify, opportunities for innovation and improvements in CSCs, both from the citizens’ and policy makers’ perspective. 

Method: To achieve the aim and objectives of the study, the author undertook a two-phased approach; the first phase of the study was essentially devoted to field visits to capture rural citizens’ perspective of initial version of CSCs in the state of Rajasthan and the second phase of the study was undertaken to triangulate the findings in the present context, from the perspective of policy makers and academia deeply involved in CSC. Each of these phases being explained herewith.

Phase-1: In its first phase, the author undertook two detailed field surveys, each for a period of seven days in the months of October 2011 and then in November 2011 to study the CSC implementation in rural Rajasthan (e-Mitra). 

Reason for Selection: The support for the choice of this case for empirical validation comes from Yin (1994. p. 38), who suggests that the use of only one case for research can be justified if the case is a critical one for confirming, challenging, or extending a theory. 

Since e-Mitra clearly refers to ‘citizen-centricity’ as its core essence that is to be validated, it served as a suitable choice on this study related to citizen-centricity component in PSD initiatives. 

Sample: Six villages clustered around ‘Vatika’ and ‘Sanganer’ blocks in Jaipur district of the Rajasthan state of India were identified to be surveyed. A total of two hundred ninety (290) villagers across these six villages of Jaipur district were surveyed over two field visits. Two hundred and fifty three (253) responses were considered valid and complete. Supported by related review of literature (Chariar, 2006), the rural citizens to be surveyed were broadly classified into four rural community groups viz. Farmers / farmworkers (‘Kisan’), Artisans (‘Karigar’), Youth (‘Yuva’) and Women (‘Nari’). This community classification, though overlapping in certain instances, helped in profiling, defining, segmenting, estimating, predicting, and examining associative relationships of rural communities with respect to the ICT implementation and aided stratified random sampling technique.

Design of Instrument: The primary data of e-Mitra, was collected using a pre-designed questionnaire, referred as Citizens’ Response Measurement Instrument (CRMI) (basic flow of CRMI is mentioned in Annexure-1) that had contained both close-ended and open-ended questions related to all the four research objectives. The close-ended questions gave precise data that could be easily quantified whereas the open-ended questions led to lengthy discussions that helped to closely examine the citizens’ perspective of their governance needs and expectations from e-Mitra. 

Technique Used: CRMI was administered using ‘personal interviews’, by explaining each individual item and its context to each of the respondents in Hindi. Respecting the respondents’ profile and to avoid the scope of inadvertent errors, personal interviews were preferred over ‘self-administered’ technique. Such interviews also provided the opportunity to the author to observe the body language of respondents and also freely discuss and corroborate her research findings. 

Data Analysis: The quantifiable data captured using CRMI was converted into numerical form and subjected to basic representation using inferential statistical analysis and subjected to cross tab analysis using chi-square test. Empirical validation of data thus obtained through the survey method was further triangulated using focus-group discussions and informal interviews of the villagers to iron out communication gaps, if any. The secondary sources including official documentation, other published papers were combined with survey findings to present recommendations and conclusions (Bhatnagar & Singh, 2010)

Phase-2: To fulfill research objective 2, objective 3 and objective 4 (section  1.3, subsection titled ‘Objectives), the author undertook the second phase of the study. In the second phase she gleaned the perspective of policy makers as well as had to contextualize research findings of the year 2011 to the current year (2023). Senior CSC officials and academic (jointly referred as ‘CSC veterans’ in the study) were considered - who have been closely associated with CSC 2.0 for a period more than two years (Annexure-2). These CSC veterans were approached with a request to share their expert opinion on CSCs, all of whom graciously consented to participate in the survey. However, two of those directly associated with government chose to stay anonymous, being referred as, ‘X’ and ‘Y’ respectively in the study. Depending on the mutual convenience, three rounds of informal discussions on telephone followed by a semi-formal email survey was undertaken with all the CSC veterans. Opinions expressed by each of them were again reaffirmed with the rest of them. Apart from gathering the desired profile details and publishing permissions from the CSC veterans, they were asked questions such as the reason for change from CSC 1.0 to CSC 2.0, key differences/improvements in implementation of CSC 1.0 and CSC 2.0, interesting facts / anecdotes about CSC 2.0 and so on.

Further, in one such initial informal discussion, a senior CSC government official, ‘X’, had informed the author, “e-Mitra Plus of Rajasthan should not be considered as an ideal representation of CSC 2.0 implementation due to its unique business model” (‘X’, personal communication, October 20, 2023). Confirming this the other senior government official, ‘Y’ (‘Y’, personal communication, October 21, 2023) corroborated that Rajasthan is one of the few states that had continued to adopt CSC 1.0 model and hence it continues to financially support SCAs to set up their respective CSCs. He further shared that the state of Rajasthan did not integrate its G2C platform with CSC SPV and still continues to avail some of the central G2C services that were made available only on the CSC SPV portal, such as PMGDISHA, Fasal Bima, Kisan credit card, labor registration, Tele law. These central G2C services were being enabled by e-Mitra center operators by simultaneously becoming a CSC SPV service provider. Due to all these unique characteristics that categorically differentiates between CSC 2.0 from e-Mitra Plus, the second phase was primarily limited to discussions only around the design of CSC 2.0 model. 

The author conducted semi-structured interviews on CSC 2.0 scheme with these four CSC veterans, during October-November 2023. The tool for conducting these interviews was designed based on her understanding of the CSC 2.0 - gathered from her almost one and a half decades of her knowledge about CSCs as well as understood by reviewing secondary literature available, an astute study of the related official websites (csc.gov.in, meity.gov.in, cscspv.in, e Mitraplus. Rajasthan.gov.in and so on), Respective social media branding on the related social handles. The findings and recommendations of the second phase were hence framed and shared with all the four CSC veterans to seek their consent. Some interesting expert suggestions emanated from them. These were also duly incorporated in the study. It was only after ‘final approval’ received again from each of them that the study was deemed complete for submission. These repeat iterations helped to enhance the quality of the final output of the study.

Limitations of the Study

Phase-1: Several years have elapsed since the conduct of the primary survey of e-Mitra that had been undertaken in the year 2011. Therefore, the additional features and services of e-Mitra that would have been added in the last few years, have not been accounted for in the study. Additionally, though the sample size in the first phase is adequate in number but it is quite uneven in its composition for the four community-classifications and is tilted more in favor of its Youth (‘Yuva’) who represent almost 50 per cent of the total sample. 

Phase-2: With regard to the second phase undertaken in the year 2023, it was mainly conducted to scale-up the findings to the present times and to elicit perspective of only policy makers and academic triangulated by review of literature and social media. Even for the latter, due to time-paucity, no systematic literature review tool (such as ‘Sysrev’ or ‘Colandr’), or content analysis (such as ‘SEMrush’ or ‘MAXQUEDA’) could be used. Further, no field visit could be undertaken. The corroboration from the citizens, particularly for e-Mitra Plus is missing in findings of the second phase. 

Last, but not the least, for brevity of space , the design of both the tools or the pictorial representation of question-wise responses could not presented and only the main findings have been summarized in this paper. However, the same could be sought from the author by any researcher who wants to pursue the related research in the domain of e-Mitra/CSCs.

Findings and Observations

Phase-1

Respondents’ Profile: The profile of respondents, segregated in 4 rural community categories (onwards referred as only ‘category’) comprised of 20.9 per cent of ‘Kisan’ (henceforth referred as only, ‘Farmers / Farm-workers’), 17.9 per cent of Karigar ( henceforth referred as ‘Artisans’), 9.24 per cent of Nari (henceforth referred as ‘Women’), 49.78 per cent per cent as ‘Yuva’ (henceforth referred as ‘Youth’) and 2.18 per cent identified as ‘Others’. Responses to all the CRMI questions centered on objective 1, objective 2 and objective -3 were analyzed over all the identified four categories using Chi-square test, findings of which are summarized herewith.

Objective 1: To understand, the governance needs and general aspirations of the citizens in the rural areas, from citizens’ perspective.

1a. Understanding Local Governance Needs of the Rural Citizens

Informal discussions of the author with some of more vocal/forthcoming respondents’ (Figure 3) revealed that the majority of the villagers particularly wanted specific information about their respective entitlements from various rural development schemes announced by the state government from time to time. When specifically queried about their expectations from public service delivery (PSD), all of them bemoaned about the lengthy bureaucratic processes of public service delivery (PSD). There was also a widespread demand for easier provisioning of domicile certificates and ration cards. They also shared their experiences about the inefficiency and corruption by functionaries of local gram panchayats and by other government departments and bemoaned about erratic water supply and unhygienic surroundings. 

Observation of the Author: Further to these informal discussions, the general observation of the author about the site (Figure 4) also clearly validated that there was a lack of proper sanitation facilities and inadequate drinking water supply in the area.

1b. Understanding General Aspirations of the Rural Citizens

In general, discussions with the respondents revealed that they aspired for information related to their respective occupations such as Farmer and 

Artisan communities aspired for more information about places to buy cheaper seeds and raw material respectively. Youth community particularly aspired to have better exposure to newer digital technologies, tools, and also about knowing various livelihood opportunities in their adjoining regions. Women community wanted safer and cleaner surroundings with easier access to local schools and public health centres.

Objective 2: If the CSC services fulfill the governance needs and general aspirations of the rural citizens

Finding: Unfulfilled Governance Needs and General Aspirations of the Rural Citizens

Detailed discussions with respondents revealed that they had expected that the implementation of e-Mitra kiosks would resolve several local governance issues. However, contrary to their expectations, they revealed that e-Mitra just remained at the level of a ‘bill-payment utility’ (till the year 2011 when the survey was conducted) despite being a mature implementation established since the year 2007. 

Analysis: Very interesting observations sprung from the CRMI data, differing for each of the communities. Majority of Women and Farmers/ Farm-Workers were found to be ‘not happy’ with e-Mitra (Figure 5) as they perceived very little advantage of it. Women seemed to be the most embittered lot. Reassuringly, Youth and the Artisans communities came across being more positive than others. When probed further majority of the respondents of these two communities radiated optimism. For instance, some of the Youth respondents justified their affirmative reply with the reasoning, “at least something has started happening which is better than nothing”; “this is the first welcome step, and we appreciate it and wait for the second step”. In the similar vein, some of the Artisans expressed that they were happy since their village “can at least boast of an e-Mitra implementation whilst some of our neighboring villages can’t.”

Objective 3: To understand, the extent of citizen participation inculcated while designing CSCs

Observation: No Citizen-Participation Sought While Designing e-Mitra 

The empirical validation of the data (Figure 6) clearly indicated that all the four communities were clear that the implementing agencies had neither sought citizens’ participation in identifying issues nor had validated from them about the usefulness of the services being currently offered by it. 

There were some affirmative replies (Figure 6) but were later found to be replies to misunderstood query on “the expected need” and not about “actual inputs sought” by the implementing agencies. Youth and Artisan respondents said that they were telling their expectations about need for citizens’ participation rather than answering about citizens’ participation actually sought by the authorities during/after e-Mitra implementation. They further expressed their willingness and reassured about their abilities to co-create such digital initiatives- irrespective of their tech-limitations. One young respondent asserted “we exactly know what we need and can tell better than anyone else.”

Objective 4: To identify, opportunities for innovation and improvements in CSCs, both the citizens’ and policy makers’ perspectives

Observation: Contextual Reality needs to be addressed while enhancing e-Mitra 

Armed with literature learnings on design thinking, the author knew that the contextual issues vary from area to area and are best known only to the local inhabitants of that area. Therefore, apart from administering the CRMI tool, the author also undertook detailed discussions with more willing respondents amongst the four communities, from wherein emerged following core-points.

i. Some of the respondents, on the condition of anonymity, shared their concerns about the monopolistic attitude of some of the VLEs manning e-Mitra kiosk. Some of the youth respondents suggested that VLEs could be more financially strengthened so as to stop them from resorting to arm-twisting tactics. It was unequivocally stated that VLEs need to be proactively monitored for the quality of services being provided by them. 

ii. The detailed interactions with the Youth of the villages had pointed out that the quality of existing IT infrastructure and services needs to be improved to ensure a better acceptance of e-Mitra. 

iii. Another strong local contextual reality that emerged was the complete absence of IT awareness in these rural areas, especially among females. The women respondents themselves voiced a need for “universal e-literacy programme” in their rural areas, before proceeding with a full-fledged implementation of any digital initiative. 

iv. It was also realized, after discussions with Artisans, that since rural tourism was popular in this region therefore, a good business opportunity lied untapped in sale of locally handcrafted products to such tourists. 

v. The local young artisans expressed a need for an ICT-based ‘Rural-haat’ platform, a rural marketplace, to showcase their local crafts without relying on expensive marketing techniques and without depending on profit-guzzling middlemen to sell their wares in nearby cities.

Summing up, the survey, observations and discussions undertaken during the first phase of study, unmistakably yielded interesting analysis not just about e-Mitra but also about the villagers, hence surveyed. In general, the villagers were found to be willing and forthcoming in vocalizing their governance needs, general aspirations and contextual issues – especially related to e-Mitra implementation in their respective villages.

Phase II

Objective 2: To assess, if the CSC services fulfill the governance needs and general aspirations of the rural citizens, both from the citizens’ and policy makers’ perspective

The findings of the second phase clearly established that CSC 2.0 had inculcated several improvements including provision of a centralized platform to consolidate the delivery of all services, and an equal emphasis was put on entrepreneurship training. In this context, the senior government official, X, on the conditions of anonymity, remarked “we learnt from CSC 1.0 and decided to change the basic strategy of providing G2C and B2C services to the citizens” (‘X’, personal communication, October 20, 2023). He advised the author to refer to the Implementation guidelines for the project “CSC 2.0” (csc.gov.in/implementation guidelines CSC 2 0 Guidelines 03.12.2015 Final.pdf) that he said, were to be treated by the state “only as recommendations” and not “as an insistence” (‘X’, personal communication, October 20, 2023). Reference to these guidelines (para 8.3.2.1, Implementation guidelines for the project “CSC 2.0” ) revealed that there was a clear suggestion to state governments to integrate their respective CSC portals with Digital Seva Portal of CSC (digitalseva.csc.gov.in/web/services) that was being operated by the centralized SPV of CSC called as ‘CSC e-Governance Service India Limited’. 

Further, para 8.3.3.1 of Implementation guidelines reads, “All the respective applications will be integrated with the proposed universal platform of CSC (managed by CSC SPV, i.e. CSC e-Governance Service India Limited) for all the services. This includes mandatory integration of State/UT portals, e-Districts services”. When asked to clarify the usage of the word ‘mandatory’ in the above line, the official, being referred by us as ‘X’, insisted that this is “for a coordinated implementation of the CSC 2.0 project and is in the interest of successfully implementation of the CSC 2.0 project only” (‘X’, personal communication, October 23, 2023). 

When informed about monopolistic attitude of VLEs in some stray instances, CSC veteran ‘X’ conveyed that CSC 2.0 follows a completely different, “transaction-oriented entrepreneurship model” (‘X’, personal communication, October 23, 2023), wherein each and every VLE needs to invest their own operational and capital expenses for operating and establishing the CSCs, thereby making “VLEs more self-dependent and more careful in their dealings” (‘X’, personal communication, October 23, 2023). In particular, these VLEs have resorted to social media as means of community outreach (Figure 7). In the June 2020, 3.8 lakh CSCs across the country had celebrated the power of social media in amplifying change through ‘CSC Social Media Day’ (www.csc.gov.in/new_newsletter/2020/Jun/csc_newsletter_highlight_2june_20.html. Review of popular social media handles of CSC and their tags (for instance, #DigitalIndia, #CSC, #JaankariSuvidhaPortal #RuralEmpowerment, #DigitalSevaPortal) reveal that each of the VLEs have their own unique strategies to lure more visitors to their unique local instance of CSC.  Even ‘Y’ remarked, “CSC 2.0 scheme has no provision for revenue support in the way of viability gap funding for VLEs that showed them more professional in their dealings with villagers” (‘Y’, personal communication, October 24, 2023). 

VLEs or their mentors regularly post unique stories (Figure 8) on their social media handles on VLEs have redefined operations of their respective CSCs, how villagers interact and communicate with VLEs and with each other through CSCs and that how CSCs have democratised access to public information and services in their respective villages. All these expert inputs and social-media review assured that CSC 2.0 scheme is not VLE-centric but citizen-centric. 

Indeed, this unified approach of CSC 2.0 scheme seems to have served its purpose of providing concentrated G2C services from ‘single window’ resulting in significant progress in terms of its coverage and transactions and thus making it more self-sustainable. For instance: 

1. As per its official web site (csc.gov.in), as of September 23rd 20211, there were 5.77 lakh functional CSCs across India, out of which 4.60 lakh were in rural areas and 1.17 lakh were in urban areas.

2.  According to the annual report of 2020-21 , a total of 3,218.24 lakh transactions valued INR 61,065.61 crore were made through the CSC ecosystem (Portal Services + Services like Banking and Digipay, Aadhaar Enrollment and PMGDISHA Programme) in the financial year, 2020-21. 

3. The same Annual report of 2020-21 further states that with more particular reference to banking services, there were 67,000 plus CSC based Banking Correspondent Agents / Customer Service Points, referred as CSCs BCs who had provided banking services to the citizens across the country, as a result of which 1,122.44 lakh banking transactions worth INR 42,838.71 crore could be made by the citizens during the financial Year 2020-21 (ibid 23).

The fact that CSC 2.0 have received several awards and recognitions also vouches for its achievements and innovations in PSD viz. Skoch Order-of-Merit Award for Aadhaar Services (2016), Skoch Platinum Award for PMGDISHA (2017), Skoch Gold Award for Tele-Law (2018), Skoch Gold Award for UMANG App (2019) , ET Government Global Smart Cities Forum Award for Telemedicine ( 2020). However, what was glaringly missing was any award conferred on CSC 2.0 after the year 2020. 

Objective 3: To understand, the extent of citizen participation inculcated while designing CSCs, both from the citizens’ and policy makers’ perspective. 

In her interview, Dhal - the senior CSC academics, deemed that CSCs in India are “a structural change inthe administrative processes for co-creating a more flexible and proactive governance, which has significantly changed the nature and extent of citizens’ participation in the processes of governance” (S. Dhal, personal communication, October 19, 2023). This statement of CSCs as a tool of citizen participation was heartily endorsed by the senior government official, ‘X’, who had closely seen the policy making from the initial CSC avatar to the present CSC 2.0 and who, on condition of anonymity added, “It was clearly understood at the senior most level of the centre that community participation and collective action and not ICT alone, would lead to sustainable socio-economic development and long-term rural prosperity through CSCs” (‘X’, personal communication, October 21, 2023).

Common Service Centres (CSCs): Share (1993) has broadly defined CSCs as rural tele-centres that are equipped with basic Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and possess expertise for providing rural citizens with commodious access to all public services in their own localities in an easy, efficient, and convenient manner. Gomez, Delgadillo and Stoll (2001) expound that CSCs are not just ‘electronic service centres’ but could serve as ‘community centres’ as well as places for social encounters and referred to CSCs as a platform for mobilising efforts to meet community needs of rural citizens. 

In particular context of India, CSC scheme has been ssupported by both Government of India’s flagship program National e-Governance Plan –NeGP (2006) as well as by the present Digital India programme (2015- onwards). Referring to CSC implementation in the state of Odisha, Dhal (2020) has perceived CSCs as a key to citizen-friendly administration and she further asserts elsewhere (Dhal, 2020) that CSCs also facilitate women’s empowerment through Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools along with participative models of governance. The same was vouched in a case narrative of three women VLEs from three different regions (Hardoi, Sonbhadra and Varanasi) of state of Uttar Pradesh ( Event Report , Varanasi VLE Conference, September 6 , 2016). This report (Figure 2) had celebrated “The Varanasi VLE conference” organized by CSC SPV brought the network of Government, VLEs, Industry and Rural India together on a common platform through this mega event, In this report, amongest other narratives, Ms. Vandana Tiwari from Hardoi, who was running a CSC and had12 employees, had shared her own experience on the role of CSC in creating job opportunities, particularly for women, in the villages. The report also highlighted several other citizen-centric facilities that had been ushered by CSCs in Uttar Pradesh such as provisioning of Wi-Fi facility, Veterinary Videoconferencing facility, Apollo Tele-health Services, Videocon D2H being provided through CSC centres in Uttar Pradesh ( Event Report , Varanasi VLE Conference, September 6 , 2016).

Evidently, CSCs have been important and sustainability of CSCs can be achieved if a ‘citizen-centric approach’ is adopted for implementation of CSCs. ‘Citizen-centric approach’ has direct linkages with the concepts of ‘citizen-participation’/‘co-creation’ and ‘design thinking’, as explained below.

Citizen-Centric Approach: Citizen-centric approach contends to “tailor services to citizen needs rather than the needs of the agency delivering them’’ (Lofstedt, 2007, pp. 470) and insists on all initiatives being responsive to the needs and aspirations of the citizens (Malhotra & Chatterjee, 2014). It is quite opposite to the technology-centric approach -where the emphasis is merely on the functional and technical aspects of the implemented systems. There is a need to “adapt (citizen-centric systems to) constantly to provide services customized to personal preferences” (Jones Hackney & Irani, 2007), making citizen-centric approach quite multi-disciplinary too. King (2009) validates that such an approach helps to permeate “transparency, trust, rights, and obligations” of varied kinds of social communities in public delivery systems.

On similar lines, even the ICT4D (Information and communication technologies for development) approach dilutes the technology component in favour of the human development aspect. Upholding these philosophies, Saxena (2005, pp. 505) provokes to strive for excellence in e-governance by inculcating a citizen-centric approach which, he confidently states makes “governance efficient, effective (outcome driven), politically manageable, open, democratic and (augments) the capacity of the government to serve the needs of diverse groups”.

The other senior official, being referred in the study as ‘Y’, on condition of anonymity added, “CSC scheme is a change instrument that was always expected to provide a structured platform for socially-inclusive community participation for development” (‘Y’, personal communication, October 23, 2023). However, ‘X’ lamented, “somewhere down the line, each state implemented its own version of the same and the component of citizen participation understandably got diluted in CSC 1.0” (‘X’, personal communication, October 24, 2023).  Reassuringly, Shubha – a Digital Transformation official with her enormous experience of dealing with both versions of CSC scheme, optimistically piped, “This component of stakeholder participation was recaptured back while implementing CSC 2.0; there were several instances where the boundaries between all the stakeholders would dilute during our Townhalls that were conducted at MeitY with VLEs and villagers” (V. Shubha, personal communication, October 20, 2023). To prove this she narrated about a CSC anthem that had been co-created to motivate the VLEs in the year??. She reminisced emotionally.