Role of Akshaya centers in providing e-governance

facilities
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of
Degree in
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
KERALA UNIVERSITY
By
KRIPALAL S
SUBIN S

TKM INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

MUSALIAR HILLS,KOLLAM -691505
2017-2018 Under the guidance of Dr. Vinith Kumar Nair
Professor, Marketing Area &
Associate Dean-External Affairs
 DECLARATION

We here by declared that The impact study of Emotionally Content High Advertisement on
Consumer Perspective of buying preference in Kerala is the report of the original work done
by us under the guidance of Dr. Vinith Kumar Nair (Professor Marketing Area & Associate
Dean- External Affairs , TKM Institute of Management) towards partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the award of Post graduate degree of MBA of University of Kerala during the
period of study in TKM Institute of Management Karuvelil.

We also declare that the report has not been submitted by us for the award of any degree, diploma,
and any other university earlier.

Date : 19-04-2018 KRIPALAL S

SUBIN S
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Above all the first I take this golden opportunity to express my personal gratitude to Dr.
Vinith Kumar Nair (Professor Marketing Area & Associate Dean- External Affairs, TKM
Institute of Management). We consider it is our privilege a few words of gratitude and take these
opportunities of do so. We wish to hearty thanks to everyone who helped for completing this
project.

Above all I thank God almighty for giving courage, wisdom, and for the abundant grace that be
best owned upon me to complete this work successfully

KRIPALAL S

SUBIN S
 INTRODUCTION
The Akshaya project, first started in the rural Malappuram district of Kerala, India, and now
spread all around the state, was the first district-wide e-literacy project in India and one of the
largest known Internet Protocol (IP) based wireless networks in the world. In November 2002,
the state government of Kerala put into place a project, piloted in Malappuram, with the goal of
at least one person in every family to be computer literate in that district. Malappuram is now
what is said to be India's First E-literate District. The mission continues to make Kerala the First
E-literate state in India.

In Malappuram district alone, Akshaya has conducted one of the world's largest computer
literacy drives, claiming to reach over 600,000 households, representing more than 3.6 million
people, in less than 6 months. The project has created a unique brand of state-funded computer
access centers, and simultaneously led to a massive wireless infrastructure, providing a wide
range of services and making way too many future opportunities.

The project offers lots of services like: E-Pay (electronic payment of utility bills like electricity,
land phone, drinking water, university fees etc.); E-Krishi (for farmers to provide online
agriculture trading and information portal, A to Z Solution) E-Vidya (advanced IT learning for e-
literates and others); E-Ticketing (online train, flight, bus ticket reservations); PMRY online
registration; online passport registration; a village kiosk for transparent collectorate program,
online communication providers for expatriate Indians; an online medical transcription course,
with extension programs for all the above-mentioned services.
 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Objective

Our main objective of this research is to analyze the role of akshaya in providing E-
Governance facilities. To know the attitude towards E-Governance system from the general
public.

Nature of research study

Research Design is the conceptual structure within which research is conducted. It constitutes the
blueprint for collection, measurement and analysis of data. The design used for carrying out this
research is Descriptive.

Data Collection
The data was collected through questionnaires and the sample size was 50.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To analyse the role of Akshaya in rural area.

2. To study about India’s various E-governance programmes.

3.To analyse the performance of Akshaya in rural area.

4.To know the performance services provided by Akshaya centres.

5.To know the attitudes towards E-governance system from the general public.
 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

It is found that there is a lack of studies on the use and services of Akshaya. As
Akshaya centers are considered as tele centers, they tend to be trusted as the most relevant to
meet local needs compared to libraries and cyber café which belongs to the same category
(Gomez and Gould ,2010).pal(2009) revealed that general awareness of Akshaya was very high
and most e-literate users felt that their prestige in village had increased because of having
become ‘e-literate’.But due to lack of awareness about such schemes and their implementation,
people could not receive the information at proper time and this became the major hurdle in the
path getting benefits of government schemes (sharma,2008).

Kuriyan Ray and Toyama(2008) conducted a study on the challenges and tradeoffs of
implementing the Akshaya project and to analyze the business strategies of the Akshaya
entrepreneurs. The finding of the study revealed that market based solutions; private enterprise
and advanced technologies can increase the wellbeing of the poor and concurrently increase the
profit of the private sector. It is found that poor are not the primary customers of the ICT kiosks
except for a one time, subsidized Akshaya course. The main consumers are those in the middle
class. It is also showed that broader political economy significantly influences the practice of
technology promotion and access. Another study of Akshayatelecenter project in kerala
(Gopakumar and Rajalekshmi, 2007) Revealed that through the personal trust between the
people and the intermediary seems apparently important for making a payment system
successful, it is on the account of the institutional trust in government that the payment system is
able to function.

International development research center (2006) conducted a study on assessment of Akshaya

project from a gender perspective. The analysis of the study suggest that with some awareness
and literacy marginal efforts, supposedly gender neutral Akshaya project could have indeed done
wonders. With the support of some of the extra ordinary women entrepreneur coming from very
ordinary circumstances could have profitably utilized. Madon(2005) investigated the issues
regarding the sustainability of the Akshaya tele centr project in Kerala in terms of interaction
between the government, entrepreneurs,
international donors, telecommunications suppliers, local companies, civil society organisations
and individual community members the findings of the study revealed that there are five critical
issues currently affecting the sustainability of Akshaya project focusing on how relations and
exchange have been managed over time.

It is evident from the review of literature that there is a need to study the use, service and
achievements of Akshaya. The present study is intended to find out use, services and
achievements of Akshaya community information centers in the prospective of the entrepreneur.
This study will be useful to find out answers to questions associated with the project and suggest
proper measures to overcome the problems encountered with Akshaya centers.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The government of kerala set up Akshayacentres in 2002 to combat ‘digital

divide’ in the state – way before the central government came up with the concept of the
common service centres (CSCs). The decision to set up Akshyacentres as a one – stop shop for
all the e-governance and technology – related services was taken after the government noticed
that the e-governance scheme were note being very successful in Kerala because of the low
technology awareness in the sta
FINDINGS
 ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
 More than half of the respondents prefer Akshaya center, because of good and excellent
services, while nearly 1/3 prefer this center because levy nominal service charge.
 2/3 of the respondents are satisfied with the services avail from Akshaya center, while 1/3
are highly satisfied.
 62% of participant’s rate Akshaya center has “good” category, while 28% rate this center
as excellent.

 22% of respondents are used this center to pay electricity bill, and 10% to pay telephone

bill. Mean while 62% relay Akshaya center for many other e-governance facilities.

 78% opinioned that Akshaya centers levy average service charge, while 6% says they
levy high charge.
 88% of participants know the additional services provided by Akshaya center and 88%
has aware about e-education provided by Akshaya.
 84% believes that e-governance facilities of Akshaya centers can reduce corruption.
 36% of participants have 1to4 year relationship with Akshaya, while 34% has 4 to 8 years
relations.
 More than half (52%) respondents related with Aadhar facilities and 24% deal with PSC
registration and 8% for voter ID registration.
 CONCLUSION
E-governance is an application of ICTs to transform the efficiency, effectiveness,
transparency and accountability of informational and transactional exchanges within government
to government, government to citizen, government to business and government to common
citizens.

Akshaya has been trying to make government services more accessible to villagers, which
attempt to reduce the time and money people spend, trying to communicate with public officials
and to provide immediate, transparent access to local government data and documentation.

Most of the people are use the facilities of the akshaya centers. They are satisfied in their services.
It is cost effective compared to other private firms. The study found that Akshaya Centres are
widely used for bill payments and a majority of the entrepreuneurs provides various services at
affordable rates. E-literacy programme is the main attraction of the Akshaya that increased the
status of Akshaya Centers.