Cisco today signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd. CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd is a private company established to catalyze and accelerate the delivery of various eGovernance services through the CSC framework. The purpose of the MoU is to make education and health care solutions available and to promote social inclusion through CSCs across India. The MoU was signed by Shankar Aggarwal, CEO, CSC e‑Governance Services India Ltd. and Naresh Wadhwa, president and country manager, Cisco India in the presence of John Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco; Wim Elfrink, chief globalisation officer and executive vice president, Cisco Services; R. Chandrashekhar, secretary, Department of Information Technology, government of India; and S. R. Rao, additional secretary, Department of Information Technology.

The Common Service Centres program is a strategic cornerstone of the government of India’s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) with 250,000 CSCs planned across 600,000 villages. The CSCs have the potential to offer Web-enabled e-governance services in rural areas as well as to provide high-quality and cost-effective video, voice and data content and services in areas such as education, health and entertainment.