GSFC managing director Mr SK Nanda told The Financial Express that while the state government would provide 25 per cent subsidy and the national equity fund 10 per cent, the entrepreneurs would have to chip in the remaining 65 per cent of the project cost. For that too, he said, GSFC has a five-year loan scheme bearing 12 per cent interest for about 40 per cent of the project cost.

On the other hand, ESP has entered into an alliance with Citibank to receive the amount through cash, cheques, credit or smart cards at the kiosks. One need not become member of the Citi Bank, said ESP's chief executive officer Mr Nayan Bheda. He was in the city in connection with the inauguration of the state's first such interactive information kiosk with video-conferencing facilities, on Sunday. These information-cum-dispensing interactive kiosks with video conferencing facilities, with advanced security features, have been designed, developed and fabricated so that people who have never used a mouse or keyboard could browse. These kiosks are priced at Rs 1.50 lakhs upward.

Meanwhile, Mr Bheda said, ESP has initiated talks with utility companies such as Ahmedabad Electricity Company (AEC), Ahmedabad Telecoms, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), AT&T, among others, to incorporate the customer data base in the dispenser kiosks. Taking a cue from Extra Sensory Perception (ESP), he said the company has been thus named to make these interactive kiosks really user-friendly. It has just received an export order from a UK-based firm to supply 5,000 kiosks, with a minimum guarantee of buying 1,000 units, to be renewed after every lot.

Mr Nanda said the government has taken this initiative in which owners of such booths would be provided with an ISDN line free of cost. Out of nearly 32,000 such booths in the state, the government is upbeat about 1,000 to 2,000 booth operators going for Internet capabilities in the first phase. GSFC is one of the five state corporations classified by IDBI as `A' category corporations. It has disbursed financial assistance of Rs 365 crore to nearly 560 units and recovered a record Rs 476 crore during the last fiscal. It has recently floated special schemes for IT, bio-technology and high-tech agriculture, he said.