SREI to develop rural IT infra project

Kolkata: SREI Sahaj e-Village Ltd, a subsidiary of SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd plans to invest close to Rs 1,000 crore in various phases till the end of 2009 in order to develop rural IT infrastructure project in the country.

The project entails setting up 25,000 common service centers in rural India across six states namely West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

These centers would link the rural areas with the world and provide all necessary services needed by them.

The services to be offered includes e-governance, e-commerce and e-learning. The company also plans to gradually expand the service range.

“We have already introduced computer education, spoken English and typewriting skills among rural youth. We will also like to provide job oriented vocational certificates,” said Dr Sabahat Azim, Chief Executive Officer, SREI Sahaj e-Village Ltd.

Mr Hemant Kanoria, Chairman and Managing Director, SREI, said, “The implementation has already begun in West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu and within the end of next year all these 25,000 centres will be operational.”

SREI Sahaj is also in talks with banks and insurance companies to provide banking access to the cities connected by the technology.

“We are in advanced stages of discussion with some banks and we hope to finalise it soon,” said Mr Azim.

The creation of rural infrastructure would service around 210 million rural people, Mr Kanoria said.

Sahaj also plans to expand to other States and cover a large part of the country through the rural partnership approach.