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