The Kerala state government’s Akshaya e-Centers, which distributes and provides government services might soon start selling products from private companies like Reliance Jio, and Patanjali, reports The Hindu. The report adds that the government might use Common Service Centers which is set up under the National e-Governance Plan for delivering Internet-based services to rural areas. However, officials handling Akshaya centers were seemingly against the plan, as the report has quoted an official as saying “Akshaya centres are not commercial establishments. Earlier too, we got requests to sell computer peripherals, but we had refused as it goes against the very purpose for which these centers were set up.” CSCs have already tied-up with private cos for services and products MediaNama was not able to independently verify these developments, but note that CSC were earlier used to distribute products and even services offered by private companies. Flipkart signed an MoU with CSC centers pan India to help village entrepreneurs list products on Flipkart’s e-commerce platform. In 2014, Monster.com tied up with CSC to launch a new e-KYC based job portal for rural India, while Airtel had also tied up with CSC to provide its Airtel Money application to rural citizens. Apart from this, CSC scheme also procured a license under the government’s Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit (BBPOU) is to allow citizens to make phone recharges, electricity bill payments under the centralized Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS). CSC are also managed and run by Village Level Entrepreneurs; this acts as a form of…
