Narrowing the digital divide

FARM VIEW

The fear that computer-based information and communication technology may not work in rural areas because of illiteracy and other factors has now been dispelled.

Recent attempts to push it to villages, even remote ones with low literacy rate, have all been a great success. First, the experiment in electronic knowledge delivery initiated in 1998 by the Chennai-based M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Pondicherry was a success from the word go.

Then came the launch of e-chaupals by ITC in 2000. And now it is Ogilvy & Mather's rural connectivity project, "Param", that is paving the way for narrowing the digital divide between urban and rural India.

The MSS Research Foundation's pioneering project in this field was aimed at delivering need-based knowledge to villagers through a hybrid, wired and wireless, network consisting of computers, telephones, VHF duplex radio devices and e-mail connectivity.

It operates in 11 villages around Villianur in Pondicherry, covering a population of about 22,000. The information required by the villagers is collected and suitably processed through value-addition by experts before being delivered in the local language, Tamil.

The success of this project inspired others, notably the private companies dealing in agro-products, to use digital technology for reaching out to the rural areas, especially those not connected by other means of communication.

ITC's e-chaupal (chaupal is the common place where villagers gather) has been the most elaborate and extensive venture in this field so far.

Conceived by ITC's international business division and launched in 2000, the e-chaupal project has since grown to around 2,700 chaupals covering a population of around 1.2 million in five states "" Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The market-led business model followed in this project aims at facilitating productivity enhancement for higher income and better risk management for villagers. It offers services and information on subjects like weather and market prices, scientific farm practices, sale of inputs and purchase of produce, among others.

The company now plans to extend the e-chaupal project to some 15 states, setting up about 20,000 e-chaupals in the next few years. That would provide electronic information access to around 10 million people.

Besides, it proposes to channelise some additional services relating to micro-credit, insurance, health and education through the same infrastructure.

The latest, and in some ways, innovative initiative in rural connectivity has come from Ogilvy & Mather. Called Param, this project was originally conceived for marketing communications but has evolved into a platform that can be shared by companies and government departments to reach out to the villages. Its details were presented in the recent international conference on e-governance at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

According to Pankaj Baveja, the project head, this electronic connectivity network can reach the remotest rural areas where no landline or media-based communication is currently available. "Connecting the last mile first" is the theme of the project that has been successfully field-tested in villages located over 10 km away from a metalled road in the relatively backward Basti district in eastern UP.

The Param is a multiple technology project (some off-the-shelf technologies and some specially developed in-house ones) to capitalise on the synergy between technology, software and communications. The computer interacts with the operator in the local language, in both written and spoken words, to overcome the literacy barriers and makes it highly user-friendly.

As revealed by the pilot trial run, even children and women in rural areas were able to use these computers to seek the needed information. In fact, the pilot project brought out the self-learning potential among children who have had no formal education or training in operating computers.

Significantly, the software used in the project is independent of network and technology, making it compatible with a variety of communication protocols and networks.

Even when the technology gets upgraded, as is constantly happening in this field, the system would be able to adapt itself to the newer technology. Besides, it is designed in such a way that it can be used in any state merely by changing the language of communication.

Thus, this new approach to rural connectivity is expected to open up new vistas not only for e-governance, but also for promoting education, healthcare, entertainment and other purposes. Private companies can use this system in business promotion in rural areas through mutually beneficial linkages with farmers, rural artisans and consumers.

In fact, several companies and other clients engaged in different sectors have already shown interest in utilising this mode of information and communication by participating in the next phase of the Param project proposed to be launched in the first quarter of 2004.