Project Description
The eight north-eastern states, being geographically inaccessible, have traditionally been less developed. Under this project, a number of information centres were set up all over the north-eastern region of the country. It was hoped that the IT revolution would give an impetus to the development of these states.

Project Objectives
The project has a number of objectives, which are centred around the common purpose of providing services to the people. Some of these are provision of web access and e-mail facilities, e-medicine and e-consulting, weather information and market access and e-commerce.

Intended Beneficiaries
The CIC project was initiated to help the people of the north-east by giving them access to communication tools like e-mail as well as serving as a source of essential information.

Partners Involved
The project is a joint effort by the Department of Information Technology (DIT), National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the State Governments of the North-Eastern states.

Impact: Costs and Benefits
Services like health, education, training, entertainment and news are now being provided through the CICs.

Lessons Learned
Such projects should not be planned without involving all the stakeholders specially the target beneficiaries. It is important to incorporate their level of ambition. Problems related to poor power supply, difficult terrain etc can be handled with proper planning.

Constraints/Challenges
Creation of content of local relevance is the biggest challenge. In these eight states several local languages are prevalent. Displaying these languages in their native script on a computer screen is another big challenge.

Sustainability Factors
Most CICs charge nominal fees for their services, which allows them to meet their daily expenses. NIC will provide satellite connectivity for five years after which the CICs will be handed over to their respective state governments.

Project or Related URLs:

http://www.cic.nic.in