(From left) Union ministry of information technology additional secretary Rajiv Gauba, chief minister Nitish Kumar and information technology minister Shahid Ali Khan at Samvad in Patna on Friday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, Dec. 21: Chief minister Nitish Kumar today urged the Centre to bear the cost of subsidy for services people avail of at common service centres (CSCs) in the state.

“I would request Rajiv Gauba, the additional secretary in the ministry of information technology, to convince the Union government to formulate a scheme, under which both the Centre and the state should provide subsidy to the CSCs. If this happens, people need not pay any charge to the common service centres,” he said.

Nitish raised the demand while inaugurating an awareness campaign to make people aware of the utility of the common service centre, which is also known as Vasudha Kendra in the state. He said it has been observed that people hesitate in availing of facilities from these centres, as they charge money for providing caste, income, residential certificates and other services.

Altogether 52 services would be provided under the Right to Public Service (RTPS) ACT through the Vasudha Kendras. The act was implemented in Bihar in August 2011 to provide the services within a specific time.

“The centres would entrusted with the task of monitoring work in panchayats and ascertain whether the work assigned is carried out or not,” Nitish said, adding that people associated with the centres could send the photographs of construction activities of school and hospital building to authorities. He also inaugurated an exhibition to make people aware of the centres.

In a veiled reference to RJD chief Lalu Prasad, he said: “We had started our journey with Remington type-writers at the secretariat. People then used to say ye IT-YT kya hota hai? But the state recently bagged an award in the field of e-governance.”