The evolution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in India has created a technological divide between the rural and urban areas. As some sections of population have easy access to the benefits of ICTs, these technologies are still not accessible or affordable for the majority of the population.
The divide is exacerbated by the deeply ingrained gender and social disparities in rural areas, particularly in case of those who are at the bottom of the pyramid. Development initiatives, especially in the rural areas, are hampered due to weaknesses in technological infrastructure, language barriers, and lack of suitable content and applications in local languages.
There is no doubt that ICT can surmount a great deal of rural India's social, political and administrative challenges and create a viable technological solution for the provision of health, education and other social services. Moreover, ICT can be used innovatively to improve access to the large, under-served market that rural India's 700 million people represent.
For instance, consider the application of ICT in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) , an employment generation program initiated by the Government of India to provide rural population with a guaranteed source of employment and boost their purchasing power.
In the initial years of its implementation, the programme was marred by a lot of financial irregularities and continual siphoning of funds into the account of fake beneficiaries. ICT based solutions (like the one developed by TCS in 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh) helped in integrating various processes like enrollment of wage seekers, monitoring of work execution, management of wage and material payments etc. into a single framework. This has allowed the local authorities to track various issues like estimates of work in progress, wages paid to the workers, muster rolls, etc. in a transparent and effective manner.
Similarly, ICT interventions in villages through various social development projects like ITC ’s e-Choupal, Government of India’s Gyan Kendra (village knowledge centre) being established in all villages under the aegis of Bharat Nirman, PlantersNet etc. have played pivotal roles in disseminating information on rural Farm-gate price realisation.
It has led to cutting transaction costs and supplying high quality farm inputs which have significantly contributed in improving the economic condition of farmers. School based projects like SchoolNet India, Uttaranchal’s Aarohi etc. have shown how technology can be leveraged to deliver cost effective teaching and learning solutions across socio-economic spectrum.
The programme works in collaboration with local schools, supplementing the teaching learning process and design and development of new applications by third party service providers according to the needs of local schools.
Further, various cost effective initiatives in e-learning area have given access of quality education to the less privileged children. Consider the initiative I-Shiksha taken up by Wipro and Intel by launching a low cost technology project to meet the needs of the students studying in government schools and hail from economically weaker sections.
I-Shiksha is an interactive learning tool that uses a system of computer networks to enhance teachers' capabilities in a classroom setting. It consists of both hardware and software, design support and systemlevel products such as servers, hubs and switches, and is an inexpensive end to end solution for distance and classroom based education.
The solution is pre-loaded with MILS (Multimedia Interactive Learning Software) teaching, learning and assessment software that enriches the learning experience in an interactive learning classroom environment. The software has features such as screen broadcasting, video/audio broadcast and interactive communication that enhance both teaching and learning. IShiksha helps education institutes shorten their development time and offers a high-performance, robust and low maintenance technological solution for the classroom.
However, barring few cases of leveraging ICT for the benefit of people in rural India, its impact in rural areas and particularly on rural poverty is very limited.
Although experiences abound demonstrating that ICT can make a significant contribution to reduce rural poverty, the list of failed initiatives appears even longer.
These organizations operate without an official framework of policies and guidelines and a clear definition of tasks and responsibilities. Understanding how ICT can service specific development goals requires both knowledge of appropriate technologies and how these technologies could be operationalized to address socio-economic goals in rural areas. Key policy-makers need to make informed decisions to enact ‘enabling’ policy frameworks fitting local needs and demands. Government needs to play a key role in making ICT work for the rural poor.
Jyoti Mani is a rule-breaker of sorts but only for certain (un)befitting rules. He's done his Instrumentation and Control Engineering from NSIT, Delhi. A fresher, his passion is to work for the education sector focusing on rural areas. Writing about it is one way he wants to bring attention to the sector. His first article here reflects the same and there are more to come.
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