Srei to link up Assam villages

SREI Sahaj e-Village Ltd, a subsidiary of Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd that has started its rural communication service through common service centres (CSCs) in West Bengal, will sign a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with the government of Assam on March 14.

According to Srei officials, the agreement will entail approximately 3,000 CSCs in the state of Assam.

CSCs will help villages in Assam be connected through the internet through the wi-fi network to be built up in the state.

Srei signed an agreement with the Government of West Bengal in 2007 to set up CSCs in 14 districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakhin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia and South 24 Parganas, Purba Midnapore, Bankura, Birbhum, Howrah and Hooghly in Public Private Partnership (PPP) Mode.

Under this program, a number of village-level-entrepreneurs (VLEs), preferably from women self-help groups (SHGs) would get direct livelihood, while rest of the population would get access to e-Governance and internet-related services at its doorstep at a very nominal rate.

Initially, each VLE would be able to earn close to Rs 3,000 per month and could go up to Rs 15,000, depending on the scale of operations.

According to Sabahat Azim, CEO of Srei Sahaj, "We would roll out 1500 CSCs every month and wish to maintain this speed for the next five years. The aim is to ensure that all facilities and services are available in rural areas and that people don't have to travel from villages to city for services."

It costs close to Rs 1.2 lakhs to set up one CSC, of which, each VLE has to make a downpayment of Rs 30,000. The remaining amount a VLE has to take on loan which Srei will organise from a bank.

"It is important that every VLE puts in money so that the VLE strives to make the business profitable, instead of taking a free opportunity for granted," Azim added.

Among other services, Srei plans to introduce three agricultural services in West Bengal by May this year. These include soil testing, agri-diagnostics and farmer training programmes.

"Under the soil testing programme, a farmer can bring a soil sample to the CSC which would be sent to a laboratory for testing. The funds for soil testing will be supported by the government of India. The report will be sent to the CSC, which could be downloaded and given to the farmer for use," Azim explained.

Similarly, for the agri-diagnostics programme, farmers could directly interact with an agriculture development officer (ADO) through video-conferencing, about any agricultural problems.

Srei also plans to start e-banking services at the CSCs this year. It will start railway ticket reservation services by April.

Sahaj has entered into a 50:50 revenue sharing model with the VLEs for certain services offered at the CSCs.