Title: Collaborating with social entrepreneurs for public service delivery in rural areas

Authors: Brajesh Mishra; S.K. Tapasvi

Addresses: School of Public Policy & Governance, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Sector 17, Gurugram – 122007, India ' School of Public Policy & Governance, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Sector 17, Gurugram – 122007, India

Abstract: Proponents of social entrepreneurship emphasise the need for governments to harness opportunity of collaborating with social entrepreneurs to solve wicked social problems Common service centre (CSC) scheme, launched by Indian government in 2006, targets to deliver large bouquet of e-services to citizens through a network of village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) in rural and peri-urban areas We have used holistic single case study approach to investigate how social entrepreneurship paradigm may be applied in context of VLEs for effective public service delivery and inclusive growth The current schema of CSC model, falling short in transforming VLEs into leveraged nonprofit social entrepreneurs, has been evaluated vis-a-vis social entrepreneurship models An important policy implication is to extend flexible and central role to VLEs in implementation of other public schemes by integrating their services and infrastructure Supporting and conducive infrastructure, motivation and operational space for social innovation are other essentials for scalability and sustainability.

Keywords: CSC; common service centre; VLEs; village level entrepreneurs; e-governance; social entrepreneurship; Government of India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEG.2021.119489

International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2021 Vol.13 No.3, pp.264 - 287

Received: 04 Jun 2020
Accepted: 27 Dec 2020
Published online: 07 Dec 2021 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article