The Common Service Centre scheme aims to establish nearly three lakh rural internet kiosks across India. A recent evaluation study, however, found poor demand among users and delayed roll-out of government-to-consumer services, causing losses and attrition among private operators of the scheme. There is space, therefore, for greater engineering of public good outcomes by tying financial incentives to computer education goals.

WHILE the installation of towers earmarked under phase I of the Universal Service Organisation (USO) rural infrastructure scheme is moving toward completion, the quality of connectivity and uptake of services through these towers have so far been poor.