Service Quality, Trust, and Citizen Adoption of Rural E-Governance Platforms: Evidence from Common Service Centres in Madhya Pradesh

Rural e-governance projects will also rely on the perception of citizens regarding the quality of services and confidence in the digital systems of service delivery, rather than the availability of technology. Common Service Centres (CSCs) are considered significant intermediaries between rural citizens and e-governance in India. This paper will look at the impact of perceived service quality on the citizen trust and consequently, uptake of CSC-based e-governance services. Based on the SERVQUAL model and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), 320 rural citizens in five districts of Madhya Pradesh were the cases of primary data. The research will utilize the descriptive statistics, reliability test, exploratory factor analysis, correlation, multiple regression tests and mediation test based on SPSS 26. Findings show that dimensions of quality of service, especially reliability, responsiveness and assurance dimensions improve citizen trust in a significant way. Trust proves to be a powerful predictor of adoption intention and continued usage, which makes a semi-mediation between the quality of the service and adoption. The results have shown the significance of citizen-focused service provision and trust-making systems in digital governance at the rural level. The paper allows advancing the body of e-governance literature by changing the direction of analysis to focus on citizens and proposing policy shifts to enhance the adoption results in rural India. Keywords: E-Governance, Common Service Centres, Service Quality, Trust, Citizen Adoption, Rural India.