IGNOU Khidmat Centres fail to evoke desired response

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, February 25

The facility of the Common Service Centres or Khidmat Centres started by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Jammu Regional Centre, to fill examination forms or avail other online services has failed to attract the students. They still prefer cyber cafes over these centres.

IGNOU had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, in 2017 with the objective of making online services of the university accessible to its students, especially those in rural/remote areas pursuing various certificate/diploma/undergraduate/postgraduate programmes in different streams.

Sources claimed that the initiative was taken for the benefit of students so that they would not have to pay exorbitant charges at cyber cafes while filling online forms. At the Common Service Centres, a nominal fee of Rs 60 was fixed for the services.

They said a majority of e-forms for seeking admission in January cycle of 2018 were being filled at cyber cafes. A very few students had utilised the services of the Khidmat Centres to fill these forms.

“The main reason behind the poor response to the Khidmat Centres is the lack of awareness about its benefits. These centres are cheaper as compared to cyber cafes. The students hailing from urban areas are familiar with such centres but those from remote areas are still unaware of these. A majority of the aspirants with whom we interacted had filled the online admission forms at the cyber cafes rather than the Khidmat Centres,” an official claimed.

When contacted, Joginder Kumar Yadav, IGNOU Regional Centre, Director, Jammu, told The Tribune: “Yes, it is true that the response of the students towards the Khidmat Centres is not that encouraging as we were expecting. But we are hopeful that with the passage of time, more students will utilise the services of these centres once they become fully aware about them.”

More than 40,000 students have been enrolled with the IGNOU, Jammu Regional Centre, which is having a network of 66 learning study centres across the Jammu region. It includes 16 regular study centres, 22 programme study centres, 24 special study centres and four jail study centres.