Not Just Cows are Sold on the Internet...

Surajmal Devanda is a happy man. He is a resident of Dabri Rampura, an

obscure village 30 kilometers from Jaipur, which has been making headlines

recently. The 28 year old Rampura resident is the first operator of the Gramdoot

project, a revolutionary egovernance initiative in Rajasthan. This village of

10,000 is the first one in the state to be connected via optic fibre. The

concept involves providing connectivity to villages and district headquarters by

appointing a ‘Gramdoot’ (village representative") who will operate the

computer kiosk.

Inaugurating the project, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said, "

It is high time that the benefits of technology reached the masses".

Gramdoot aims to bridge the digital divide by providing e-Governance and rural

convergence through Axciss, an optical fibre technology developed by Aksh

Optifibres.

The project involves the setting up of a kiosk manned by a trained local

villager, and equipped with the requisite hardware, software and fibre

connectivity. Gramdoot follows the bottom-down approach as against the top-down

system wherein the link flows from the cities to the villages. The selection of

villages to be networked would depend upon the availability of basic

infrastructure such as electricity and other factors such as the number of

telephones and TV sets present in the village.

Key to quality access



Gramdoot is backed by optical network architecture, showcasing various

applications that can be used in a wide range of sectors including e-governance,

education and entertainment among others. The applications demonstrated included

e-governance, telephony, high-speed Internet access (data), cable TV, fax and

hotline among others. Dr. Kailash Choudhari, Managing Director, Aksh Optifibre

Limited said, "Convergence is poised to be an inseparable part of any

economy and future development, and is here to stay. Gramdoot is the means

through which e-governance will become a reality and materialize via the optical

fibre cable".

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot (seated) takes part in a videoconference with the Aksh office, which is based in Mumbai

Gramdoot also aims to provide a large number of other extended services in

due course of time. These would include services such as registration of

documents, valuation of immovable properties, collection of revenue, stamp duty,

transfer duty and registration fee, payment of all utilities, bills and taxes,

such as electricity, telephone bills etc. Registration of new vehicles, transfer

of ownership and issue/renewal of driving license, information for immunization

and clinical care, maternity services and e-medicine would also be among the

potential applications. The software which is in the local language, Hindi was

developed by Drishti.

Aksh Optifibre provided the connectivity for the project in the form of the

proof cable it has developed. The cable, which can be strung along existing

electricity poles, eliminates the need to dig trenches, thereby further reducing

costs and time. It can provide an economical alternative to connectivity, thus

eliminating the disadvantages of the conventional medium of connectivity, i.e.

copper. The cable also makes it possible to connect remote areas.

Investments: Focus on breaking even



Initial investments would be around Rs 5 lakh per site. Of this, the local

village operator would have to invest Rs 1.5 lakh with the remaining investments

coming from Aksh. Finance options for the operator are being worked out.

Choudhari adds, "A transaction fee would not exceed Rs 20. This would

offer a definite value proposition to the users". The revenue is expected

to mainly come from transactions resulting from government services. A farmer

sitting in Dabri could check the mandi rates real-time in Jaipur (30kms away),

Amer (50 kms away) or Chomu (10 kms away). The inauguration of the project did

demonstrate a real time transaction as a Dabri resident got the prevailing mandi

rates in Jaipur. As Dabri resident Chintan Manji says, "Earlier I had to

spend more than two hours travelling to and from the mandis beside spending

money on transportation. With the cyberkiosk in the village, I could save on

time and also reduce expenditure due to travel. One could also expect speedier

processing of applications by the district collector."

Choudhari adds, "Rural India has got tremendous growth potential. The

key is to tap this by offering services that would improve the quality of life

of the villagers". There are plans to link around 488 villages by mid 2002.

Aksh expects the project to break even within three years. The right of way is

also another issue, which has to be considered. Initially, the project was

planned at another village near Jaipur, but had to be shifted to Dabri Rampura

after the railways raised objections to the optic fibre passing over the rail

tracks. But Choudhari insists that right of way is not a major problem and would

not pose any threat to the linking up of villages.

The key to the success of such projects is acceptability. Once this barrier

is crossed and with adequate government support, such initiatives are likely to

succeed.

Amit Sarkar in Jaipur