India is building a network of over 160,000 Common Services Centres (CSCs) to take a gamut of public services to the very doorstep of the common man as part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).

The CSCs would have the ability to provide high quality and cost effective video, voice and data content and services in the areas of e-Governance, education, health, entertainment. They can also offer web-enabled public services like application form download, certificates, payments of electricity, telephone, water and other utility bills in rural areas.

The CSCs will also perform pension, income tax, social welfare, licenses, banking, insurance, agricultural, advertising and market research related works.

The CSC network would link more than 600,000 villages across the country.The perspective behind CSCs is to provide an IT-based delivery platform to government, private and social sector organisations for reaching out to the rural people in the remote areas. The implementation of CSCs involves public-private partnership, with an active participation of rural entrepreneurs.

Central government is also pushing the Rs 20,000 crore National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) project to connect the 250,000 gram panchayats across the country in a phased manner by high speed broadband system.