NEW DELHI: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) will take help of a pan-India network of around 3.5 lakh Common Service Centers for launching its portal so that it can reach out to a larger audience. As part of a pilot project, 750 Common Service Centres across the country would be covered to kick start the plan in the next one month.
The NHRC is tying up with the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as the Common Services Centers (CSC) scheme is a part of the Digital India programme. “We are in talks with the ministry regarding the project. The prime motive of the scheme is that we think it will boost the NHRC’s presence amongst the general public. Also, the portals will create awareness,” said an NHRC official closely involved with the programme.
According to officials, a CSC manager would be given some stipulated fee, which is yet to be decided, for informing visitors at these areas about the NHRC and its role. If need arises, the person incharge can help out anyone who is trying to approach the NHRC with grievances. From January to April 2018, the NHRC has received around 18,607 complaints from across the country ranging from issues such as custodial death, death in police encounters to bonded labour.
Under PM Modi’s pet project Digital India, the CSCs are the digital access points for delivery of essential public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, education and agriculture services to citizens. These facilities mostly cater to the people in areas where computers and Internet are negligible or mostly absent.