On Empowering India's Rural Face

IT and Communications have lifted India out of the gloom in the

last 15 years. It has not just created wealth for the country, but, far more

importantly, it has created confidence in the country. Youngsters in India no

longer consider themselves to be inferior to any one else in the world. India is

on the move.

Yet this confidence is largely confined to urban India. Rural

India continues to languish even after 60 years of independence. If rural areas

continue to be neglected, governments will be over-turned, policies would be

reversed and the urban led growth will be disrupted.

Over the last five years, organizations like n-Logue, Drishtee

and e-Chaupal have attempted to use IT and communications technologies to make a

difference in rural areas. An Internet kiosk, run by a village entrepreneur, is

the precursor to set up a full-fledged business center in a village, which could

connect urban and rural India. While it could be a trade center taking rural

goods to urban markets and vice-versa, the most important outcome could be

setting up rural production centers, supplying goods and services not only in

nearby urban markets, but also all over the world. Lower manpower costs will

shift production centers to these areas and create wealth there, thereby

enhancing rural incomes.

While these possibilities can indeed attain fruition with the

help of information and communication technologies, significant amount of

experimentation and hard work is required to convert the opportunities into

scalable realities. There have been attempts in this direction. But it is early

and results so far are premature and not ready to scale. Careful

experimentations are needed. This is especially important in the context of the

Department of Information Technology's (Government of India) program of

setting up 1,00,000 entrepreneur driven community service centers in villages.

The key areas where the services need to be proven include:

Rural BPO centers. With computers and communications, IT based

services can be provided to rural India. Each village of about 1,500 population

can have a 5- to 10-seater BPO employing up to 25 youngsters.

Rural outsourced production hubs. Carrying out all kinds of

production work as per order from urban areas. Any production work which would

require small sized machinery, limited power and significant human labor could

be transferred to the villages. Internet would help in co-ordination and quality

control.

Rural agricultural support centers in each village. Internet

kiosks needed to provide complete agricultural support to each farm in the

village.

Rural supply chains are needed to transport goods from a

village. Also, financial services need to be developed so that finance is

available in rural areas at 10 to 12% interest rates instead of 24 to 30% at

which most micro-finance companies provide loans.

Support for micro-enterprises and micro-franchises in village.

While these services would create wealth in rural areas, the

Internet kiosks can equally become the centers for education and training as

well as centers for delivery of health services. Not only the effectiveness of

such tele-education and tele-health programs needs to be established, but also

the programs should be financially viable or supportable in the long run.

Similar models have to be figured out to enable promotion of community-oriented

services like water harvesting.

Only then IT and communications can become agents for

transformation of rural areas and one can hope the world becomes truly flat.

Today there is a need as well as an opportunity. What is required is a will and

lots of hard work. There is no other option.