In spite of stories we hear about India’s economic boom, the statement “The soul of India lives in villages” is as true as it was over 100 years ago. For a country with a population of over a billion people, close to 70 percent of whom live in rural areas, it only makes sense to focus on the number of initiatives over the last decade that have shaped and will continue to shape the lives of rural Indians.
One these large Internet-based projects is e-Choupal, launched in June 2000 by ITC. Through e-Choupal today, farmers are empowered to determine the market prices of their produce using Internet kiosks set up by ITC in their villages. Prior to this initiative, farmers sold their produce through local middlemen in places called “Mandis” (major agricultural marketing centers in rural areas of India). Middlemen deprived farmers of the market price for their produce. Through e-Choupal, farmers sell produce at better prices while ITC gains by eliminating the middleman and improving its supply chain.
ITC’s e-Choupal network has expanded to reach more than 4 million farmers growing a range of crops, such as soybeans, coffee, wheat, and rice in over 40,000 villages through 6,500 kiosks across 10 states in India.
Similarly,many state governments have undertaken initiatives to reach their state populations via the Internet. Kiosks are planned in many states that will allow villages to fill out forms and send information for processing electronically to government processing centers. “Video doctors” are kiosks that connect villagers to doctors in urban cities via video conferencing.
Another unique effort is “United Villages,” by which WiFi-equipped buses and motorcycles provide Web content to computers without a constant Internet connection. The vehicles travel across rural India, bringing Web content to villages and updating it from time-to-time. Users can also request specific information as needed.
Although the Internet may not be as much a part of daily life in the villages as it is in the cities, it is not an unknown concept in rural areas, though it is in very nascent stages. Organizations like “Drishtee” have spread the use of kiosks for the economic development of the rural population in India.
Despite increased Internet penetration, reports suggest that India still has a long way to go in terms of rural Internet access. Even though the number of rural Internet users is said to have increased by over 30 percent since 2008, that number is pegged at an unimpressive 5.4 million. Poor PC penetration and low Internet penetration are also adding up as barriers for e-commerce growth in India.
None of these initiatives by themselves or collectively can achieve the aim of connecting all of rural India to the Internet. Infrastructure continues to be a challenge there. The lack of an efficient distribution network prevents wide disbursement of products and services. Setting up operations throws up different types of challenges in different states, ranging from political to local cultural factors.
Mobile Internet holds a lot of potential to achieve the objective of connecting rural India. According to a March 2009 report, there were about 117.82 million mobile Internet users out of 415 million mobile users in India, while there were only 6.4 million broadband PC Internet connections.
With the growth of cellphone use in India continuing unabated, a number of private companies are looking to reach out to their new potential customers in rural India via mobile marketing, text messaging, and even mobile videos. State governments are considering cellphone video documentary films that can be used to inform people in rural areas of health and education opportunities.
Although progress over the last decade has been promising, India seems to lack a comprehensive strategy backed by the federal government to accelerate the growth of Internet use in India. Without the central government playing a bigger role, Internet growth in India is likely to continue only in pockets and will be limited due to infrastructure hurdles.
— Pranay Mittal has been an IT/business management consultant for over 10 years.
How about, not just government plays its role, but independent developers and students are encouraged to come up with ideas and built such apps for mobile phones that greatly answers need of today. Like an app for blind people (which exists, as i have learnt) or may be a source for farmers to interact with their experts.
True. I was reading the other day that apps are developed for special children that help them speak up with ease. Apps are there for very young kids (who cannot communicate via words), to help them understand their language.
No doubt, cellphones shall become a necessity especially in areas where internet infrastructure lacks. Many mobile applications and innovation are available nowadays to deal with the lack of internet access especially in rural areas.
Cell phones offer great potential in educating rural populations and this opportunity is available to all developing countries around the world. But the success of social objectives achieved via cell phones will vastly depend upon the will of the government to encourage private players but at the same time invent ways to provide incentives to create documentaries, apps, etc using local factors with an aim to educate and improve literacy levels.
I think we may be in the need of a serious redefinition of paradigms in order to assess the situation in India, or for else, the new world.
The historical definition of urban vs rural was developed on the basis of physical constraints and realities that predicated an ''urban'' development which was contrary to a ''rural'' area. Those parameters don't really apply to the web for in order to connect now, you really don't need roads, long cables or whatever. A satellite dish and maybe some kilometers of cable are all you need in the event that an efficient bluetooth or wireless connection isn't feasible. Everything else may be mobile. In fact, India has its share of own satellites in orbit and a lot ( and I mean a lot) of educated people available. So my take is that the real issue is not rural vs urban, but political.
If strong political forces backup the connectedness of presently rural India, we may be in the brink of a new paradigm in social sciences: rural outposts that provide web services previously found in urban enclaves.
New? Well, if we really look those old cities such as Tenochtitlan, Palenque, Machu Pichu, the monasteries in the Himalayas, et al, which were in the middle of virtually nowhere back then, we may have to adjust our appreciation and value of what we call ''rural life''.
I'm with your thinking marjansik. Cell phones will accelerate the access to the internet and distribute information, education, and other vital information to further feed the progress.
Great blog pranay in outlining the economic and social progress that is being made possible by the internet and technology.
As people are empowered with access to new and better ways to do things, and literacy and education, they will be able to further advance.
We may disagree here, Mashka. In a world where literacy is a must, the ability to get online via mobile phone and work a few apps is going to fall into the "every little bit helps" category. Mobile access with graphical interfaces won't substitute for the broader requirements of literacy. But withholding the apps on the basis that you might encourage people not to learn more doesn't make sense to me or seem realistic. Indeed, it seems sort of nineteenth century.
I think cellphones can play a key role in the development of rural population. As opposed to computer being a luxury, a cellphone is a necessity and is much cheaper to own. I think a lot of potential uses of cellphones are possible to aid in rural development and progress. It's not necessary to have internet capabilities in the phone, a lot of great applications are possible even with phones with SMS and voice capabilities. Projects such as e-education through mobile phones, news and alerts on mobile, medical advise over voice/sms, sms-based voting, sms-based social networks are only a few to name.
"Computers at home" is a far fetched luxury in rural India.
What about the cell phones. I guess, the cell phones are not meant to be a luxury item in countries like India. It has now become a neccessity. How about we provide education and answers to their questions on cell phones. Well, as far as internet is concerned, it can be accessed on cell phones as well. What say?
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Over the last few decades, we have seen many PC- and Web-based applications adapted to work on mobile phones, and more recently, we have seen applications exclusively designed for smartphones.
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