The Community Information Centre (CIC) Project was undertaken by the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the year 2004. The basic thrust is to put the region on the IT map of the world. The CIC Project was setup to provide many IT-related facilities and services to the people. These services can be categorized as follows:
Reaching the Un reached:
Most towns and villages in J&K do not have proper communication facilities. CICs offer them instant internet access and facilities for entertainment via NICNET. Visitors also utilize the internet facilities to browse for information.
Bridging the Digital Divide:
Today, it is imperative to be IT literate for employability in many organizations. IT education and certification from Department of Electronics Accreditation of Computer Courses (DOEACC), is being provided by many CICs. Providing both education and certification, is a two-pronged approach aimed at raising the IT knowledge of the youth, children, even the elderly, while providing certification for the courses from the organizations that set the standards for the IT industry in the entire country.
Access to Government Information:
People need information in the public domain from time to time for various purposes and in this regard, they need to access government information banks. Remoteness from the distribution center of such information and lack of communication facilities make it doubly difficult for citizens to achieve this purpose. Sensing the seriousness of the problem, most government departments have set up their own websites that contain detailed information about all the forms that need to be filled up.
Citizen Centric Applications:
E-governance offers the facility of applying online for documents from a government office from the comfort of one's home or a cyber-cafe and now they are available at CICs. The government has already created the e-governance applications for many departments. Since the volume of paper work carried out as part of administrative activities is huge, total e-governance is likely to take a long time.
Common platform for knowledge sharing:
CICs provide a forum for people of various communities operating from far flung locations to come together to exchange knowledge and information that can be of greater utility to the people of all the regions of J&K. This is a win-win situation for both receiver and provider of knowledge and results in greater benefit of society at large.