Uncertainty looms over fate of Mee Seva centres

Visakhapatnam: A cloud of uncertainty looms over the future of the 120 urban Mee Seva centres in Visakhapatnam district, which recently went into the fold of a new private player, casting doubt over their services. These centres, which were affiliated to the Data Management Corporation (DMC) till February, 2016, remained shut for a week in the beginning of March due to a conflict over the contract renewals as well as refund of deposits.

Though the centres resumed their operations after some negotiations, uncertainty is still palpable with the organisers of these centres. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Pedireddy Vijaykumar, a representative of a Mee Seva centre at Narsipatnam, informed that the DMC hadn’t refunded their deposits so far and is saying that it would clear  their dues by March end. “Adding agony to our woes, now the Ram Info, which struck a deal with the government to allow franchises, is demanding Rs 75,000 as a deposit by this month end. Many of us are in the mood of quitting these centres due to very limited commission and consumer base,” Mr. Vijaykumar added.

In a move towards distributing the technological fruits to even remote villages, the state government had first introduced Mee Seva centres about a decade ago and gave permissions to various private players to extend their franchises. While the Mee Seva centres affiliated to AP Online and CMS had their presence in both urban and rural areas, a majority of the urban centres were under the hold of Data Management Corpo-ration (DMC) till this February. In March, the DMC quit the operations due to expiry of licence and this opened a Pandora’s box for the organisers.

About 120 Mee Seva centres had to close their  shutters in the beginning of March due to uncertainty over refund of deposits as well as other technical glitches. “We have so far paid Rs 25,000 to Ram Info but they are asking for another Rs 50,000  for the licences. According to regulations, we just need to pay '10,000 to any private player to procure a franchise. If anything goes wrong, we would close our shops again,” added Mr. Vijaykumar.

M. Satyanarayana, ano-ther Mee Seva centre representative, informed that many were still operating the centres due to lack of a second option for them. “We couldn’t answer the queries of the people during those 10 days when we closed our centres. Just not to lose the customer base to other centres, we again paid the licence fee,” he added. Mee Seva centres have become an integral part of life with a majority of the government services going online. One can even check the status of their applications with regard to government works online. It is aimed at bringing in transparency in all sections.