Biggies vie for AP project

R Ravichandran / Hyderabad

Wipro Infotech, HCL Infosystems, Pioneer Online and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) are among the 12 companies which have been shortlisted by the Andhra Pradesh government to implement the conversion of existing STD/PCO booths in semi-urban and rural areas into service delivery points (SDP) or Internet/VoIP kiosks.

The state government, which plans to take up the project in 5,000 villages, has decided to go ahead with the conversion in 2,500 villages initially during April while the remaining would be taken up in the second phase, said Andhra Pradesh Technology Services (APTS) managing director Suresh Chanda.

Chanda said that a district-level committee, comprising the district collector, PCO/STD booth owner, other officials and the financing bank in each district, has been allowed to select a company or companies of their choice to implement the conversion in their respective districts.

The project, part of the Prime Minister’s Rojgar Yojana Scheme (PMRY), is being implemented to provide rural and semi-urban people access to all government services like eSeva, AP Online, market rates, local information, e-mail services and VoIP for long distance calls, apart from creating computer awareness. The project would also ensure additional income for PCO/STD booth owners apart from helping Internet penetration across the state, he said.

“The government is holding talks with various parties to fix service charges and would announce the same soon,” Chanda added.

As per the proposal, the conversion cost of each STD/PCO booth into SDP has been fixed at a maximum level of Rs 50,000, of which the Centre would contribute Rs 7,500 and another Rs 35,000 would be funded by banks as a term loan, he said.
Based on the state-level bankers committee meeting held a few months ago, all banks have agreed to fund the project and the Department of Youth Services will implement the scheme at the field-level.