Call to improve ICT facilities

The information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures are significant indicators of the development of a nation.

The rural development practitioners (representatives of different non-governmental organisations) expressed their dissatisfaction over the present status of the ICT infrastructure in India.

As per the Global Information Technology Report, ICT is fast emerging as a tool for making a society networked across the world and network readiness is one index which encompasses three important stakeholders- individual, business and the government.

In its latest study, World Economic Forum has ranked India 45th on Network Readiness Index (NRI) and 67th in terms of infrastructure development.

"At the first glimpse, social development issues including poverty, primary education and health may seem more important than access to a computer and a telephone or the internet. ICT, regarded as the toy of rich, has emerged as an increasingly important tool for the delivery of critical services such as health and education, especially over dispersed geographies. Even for the creation of economic opportunities for rural population, ICT is emerging as a critical accelerator," said J Shankar, head - technology initiatives for Azim Premji Foundation.

Commenting on the gap between the status of telephone connectivity to rural and urban areas, Shankar said, "The gap between digital haves and have-nots is especially wide in India. The gap between rural tele-density and urban tele-density is widening. Tele-density in urban areas jumped by 45 per cent."

"The massive expansion of mobile phones and tele-density have become an extremely poor measure of access since unlike earlier, most households now have several phones. It is a rare that a mobile user does not have a fixed line at home," said Mahesh Uppal, director of Telecommunications and Computer Information Systems, a Delhi-based company.

"According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) figures, India had about 76.53 million phones in March 2004, of which less than 13 million phones were in rural areas," added Uppal.