Livelihood Alternatives (LA), in collaboration with CSC, Government of India organized a two-day workshop on "Commencement of Common Service Centre (CSC) Activities by Farmer Producer Companies (FPOs)" at MICM, Bhubaneswar. The workshop brought together 41 FPO representatives from 14 districts and 41 blocks of Odisha. The objective of the workshop was to strengthen FPCs so as to enable them to provide government- services, including facilitate credit- access and financial inclusion. This will significantly impact last- mile delivery of government services for the rural and predominately agrarian households.
The workshop introduced the Common Service Centre framework under the National e-Governance Plan, which enables rural access to essential digital services. CSCs act as last-mile digital hubs where Village Level Entrepreneurs provide services including G2C service delivery, Aadhaar and PAN facilitation, financial services, insurance, e-commerce, and agriculture related and advisories. By operating CSCs, FPOs gain sustainable revenue, improved member engagement, and increased footfall at their offices, while farmers benefit from time-saving, transparent, and affordable access to digital and financial services at the village level with contributing the scheme's core objective of making farmer collectives economically viable and financially self-reliant. The workshop was inaugurated by Sh. Sanjeev kumar Chadha, IFS Ex-MD, NAFED & graced by Dr. Sarada Prasan Mohanty, Regional Director, RBI along-with State heads NAFED, CSC, MICM, Banks. The emphasis was on need of FPCs to leverage existing schemes to boost income of shareholders as well as to create entrepreneurial mindsets with proactiveness to realise the dreams of a Viksit Bharat, dream of Sh. Narendra Modi ji
The workshop stood out for its engaging and enthusiastic approach through the fun filled interactive story telling session. Certificates were distributed to each and every participant of the workshop.