A Kiosk For His Community
Between the Lines: Stories of Change
The ‘Between the lines: Stories of Change’ series bring to you short stories captured during a listening exercise with over hundred entrepreneurs from rural India during the nation wide lockdown in India.
Remember the kiosk you walked to pick newspaper from with your dad as a kid? Mangal Singh Dohre started one such kiosk, Jan Seva Kendra Kiosk, in 2015, in a nook of village Behta, his birthplace. His kiosk soon became a local hub for information services — photocopies for village students and a portal for registration for government schemes.
About three years ago, he relocated Jan Seva Kendra Kiosk next to the main highway of Jhansi city, where demand rose for services like Aadhaar Enabled Payment System to make deposits and withdrawals, issuing of Ayushman and Ration Cards, and enquiries on pension related schemes. Mangal was there for his customers — on weekdays and weekends, festivals and regular days. For him, they are his community and not just customers.
After the lockdown was announced, Mangal was forced to pull down the shutters of Jan Seva Kendra Kiosk and start work from home. His home-based kiosk continues to provide ration cards for accessing relief packages to members of his community. The urban daily wagers who were forced to
return to their villages on 27th March, with little to no savings for survival, have especially benefited from the operations of the kiosk.
Mangal Singh Dohre is a member of Work 4 Progress India program of Development Alternatives and “la Caixa” Foundation. He diversified his enterprise model in 2018 and has been awarded by the regional government for providing quality information services to his community. His kiosk provides information to 25 villages in Jhansi.
