Dimapur, April 15 (MExN): The Nagaland State Government has signed a two-year contract with the central government to extend central control over the Community Information Centres (CICs) in the state.
Highly reliable sources in the Department of Information Technology, Nagaland, disclosed that the move comes after the five year contract with the government of India as the five year contract with the central government expires this year, after which the centres will have to be looked after by the state government.
However, the main reason for the extension of the contract could not be ascertained, but surely this move comes as a welcome relief for the state government which has on more than one occasion in the past expressed its inability to run the CICs on its own.
It is worth mentioning that the Community Information Centre (CIC) in Nagaland, which is a Prime Minister Project and the Minister of Communication and Technology is implementing it through National Informatics Centre (NIC), government of India for all North Eastern States including Sikkim, was set up in the year 2002.
Each CIC has two CIC Operators (CICOs) for managing the centres and providing services to the community. The central government bears all the expenditures for maintenance of the CIC equipments and salaries of the operators for the first five years. The State Governments are responsible for providing manpower to the centres. As per the plan of the CIC project, after five years the CICs will be handed over to the state governments.
The CIC has been steadily becoming an excellent centre of service for the people in the north eastern region. Apart from the NIC, the state govt. has also been entrusted with the responsibility of site preparation, recruitment of manpower etc. The project is a joint effort of the Department of Information Technology, NIC and state government of the NE states.
There are all together 487 CICs in the eight north eastern states, out of which 219 are in the state of Assam.
