Chandigarh, January 25: The Cabinet on Wednesday decided to close all but 500 of the state’s 2,147 sewa kendras, with the Chief Minister directing the authorities concerned to explore the possibility of using the infrastructure of the centres as anganwadis or panchayat ghars.
It was decided to serve a 180-day notice to end the contract with the service provider of the sewa kendras. The contract with the provider, who was charging Rs 220 crore annually, was for five years.
Finance Minister Manpreet Badal said the sewa kendras were constructed at a cost of Rs 200 crore, with Rs 1400 crore estimated to be spent on their operations in five years. The Department of Governance Reforms has suggested rationalisation of these kendras. The report of the committee formed under the Chief Secretary to study the sewa kendras’ functioning found that the state required only 500 such centres, which could be managed by the DCs.
To make the project financially viable, the Cabinet decided to shift their operations to a new model.
The matter was also discussed in a meeting of the e-governance society last month.
It was noted that most of the kendras being closed were located in rural areas. These were receiving barely 10 applications in a month. Of the total centres, 1,755 are in rural areas.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
