Latest news with #CSCDiwas
New Indian Express
27-07-2025
- General
- New Indian Express
Bringing digital India into tribal hinterlands of Odisha
BHUBANESWAR: If people of tribal-dominated Chaturanjali and 13 other remote villages nearby, many not yet entirely accessible, in Mayurbhanj district are experiencing the convenience of government-to-citizen (G2C) e-services today, Manjulata Chattar has had a significant role in it. A village-level entrepreneur of Chaturanjali, Chattar runs a common service centre (CSC) in her village that helps people of the area get access to online banking and other government services. In fact, the CSC was termed as one of the top-performing centres in the country by Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw who also felicitated Chattar with CSC Digital Seva Gaurav Samman at the CSC Diwas held in New Delhi recently. Vaishnaw said Chattar digitally trained herself to start the CSC, which has become a lifeline for over 2,000 villagers, especially women, and marginalised communities, in the rural area of Mayurbhanj district. She provides the CSC services to villagers for free. While the CSC was started by her husband Rajanikant Chattar in 2016, it was converted to CSC+ in 2023. 'After my marriage, my husband encouraged me to take advanced training in computer operations. Since he had already received his CSC operator ID, I wanted to help him run the centre. So, I applied for a CSC ID too, and underwent a month-long training on the Digital Seva portal to qualify as an operator,' recalled 38-year-old Chattar, who is a BA graduate from Karanjia Women's College. While the couple initially handled the CSC operations together, Chattar today runs it entirely by herself and has employed eight staff for help. Of the eight, six are girls of her village who have completed their Plus II or graduation.
The Hindu
16-07-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Govt will train CSCs in AI, address duplication in State govt efforts: Vaishnaw
Common Service Centres (CSCs) around the country will receive free Artificial Intelligence training, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, told a packed gathering of Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) who run the tech centres on Tuesday (July 15, 2025). Mr. Vaishnaw also said that the government would address duplication issues posed by States' own digital service centres. The Minister was speaking at the annual CSC Diwas, where VLEs from around the country gather. CSCs are key in making online government services and websites available to people living in remote areas. Lalremruata, 29, a VLE in Lawngtlai, Mizoram had 'facilitated business worth over ₹8 crore through his CSC in the financial year 2024–25,' the government said in an award citation. Mr. Lalremruata was felicitated at the event alongside other VLEs working in remote districts. There are over 5.6 lakh CSCs in India, and over four-fifths of them are in rural areas. Aadhaar buzz While Mr. Vaishnaw and Minister of State for IT Jitin Prasada spoke, much of the VLEs' enthusiastic applause went to Bhuvnesh Kumar, who is the chief executive officer of the Aadhaar issuing Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). CSCs have not been able to perform enrolments and major updates for Aadhaar since 2018, following an order of the Supreme Court. Still, VLEs hope to regain that business, as Aadhaar enrolment and updates are a potentially high volume business. Mr. Prasada and Mr. Vaishnaw said they would look into the issue, but did not commit themselves to reopening all Aadhaar enrolment and update activities to CSCs just yet (VLEs can only perform address and other 'demographic' updates for the moment). 'Don't clap until the work is done,' Mr. Prasada said. Mr. Vaishnaw said he would discuss the issue with Mr. Kumar. Mr. Prasada pointed to the issue of cybersecurity, and urged VLEs to work with the government on the issue. India has seen major digitisation, he said. 'But with such big achievements, there are equally big challenges and those challenges are of cyber security in which you will also play a very important role to equip the people of India,' he said. 'All these things are related to the security of the country. We should take care of the people and there should be a constant dialogue.'
