MP statewide cyber kiosks may come a cropper

Aditya Malaviya


Bhopal

Things have failed to take off after the much hyped announcement of an MoU between the Reliance Group and the Madhya Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (MPSIDC) in June last to establish a statewide network of cyber kiosks for delivering citizens' services.

It is said that even the agreement for a joint venture company of Reliance and MPSIDC to follow up the MoU has yet to be finalized by the State Government. As a result, there seems to be a possibility of the targeted first 500 kiosks by March this year, and all the 7,800 by March 2002, may come a cropper. In that eventuality, the State Government's plan to replicate the highly acclaimed Gyandoot e-governance model of Dhar district throughout the State may come undone. However, SR Mohanty, MD, MPSIDC, allayed the fears saying, "The project might be held up for a couple of months. We're just being thorough." Others, however, are not so sure.

According to sources, Industries, Law and Finance departments are scrutinizing the JV agreement. The State Government is deliberately going slow in the matter. However, to many industry watchers, the caution seems misplaced. Critics say that the State Government should act proactively after pioneering the concept of e-governance with Gyandoot. The MoU provides for five per cent equity to MPSIDC in the JV. The State Government undertaking doesn't invest but secures clearances for Reliance to lay a 4,500 km network of Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) on which cyber-kiosks would be run.

The network in the state is a part of the nationwide OFC backbone of Reliance Telecom's national long-distance (NLD) mesh that would eventually cater to its convergence plans. Company sources say 400 km of cable has been laid since its NLD project was given the go-ahead in October last.

Shekhar Singh, the Reliance point man in Bhopal, refused to comment. The state's central location makes it crucial to NLD plans of any telecom company. Besides, Reliance is expected to make a near-sure foray into basic telecom services in MP telecom circle when the center allows a free run. The same network could service those operations as well.

"Kiosks on the network would have been a mere add-on," said a Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) official.

Officials say that it was a cozy tie-up. The cash-strapped State Government got Reliance to invest in its e-governance plans. With a near-empty treasury and a can-do gambit, Reliance had a government agency getting the notoriously thorny right-of-way clearances to lay the cables. It would eventually give Reliance a head start over other telecom operators in NLD and the probable basic telephony operations in the State. While Reliance priorities have shifted to NLD, the State Government is left completely unprepared for e-governance.

No exercise is currently underway to identify which citizen services would go online through the statewide intranet of the Reliance network. The exercise, it seems, has lost its way ever since some key IT-savvy bureaucrats were shifted to the newly-carved state of Chhattisgarh. (CNS)