Monday, July 16, 2001		Article

THE decision of the Government of India to open up the market for the Internet-based telephony by April 2002 could go a long way towards minimising the digital divide between the rural and urban India. For the inexpensive and affordable VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology could help rustic as much as urban dwellers to exploit the potentials of the Net. Internet kiosks in rural areas, could, while serving the commercial interests of its promoters, contribute to the socio-economic advancement of the hitherto backward villages.

For instance, information kiosks or soochana kendras set up by the Government of Madhya Pradesh help farmers in the remote village get market trends of agricultural products on a day-to-day basis. A cluster of 20 to 30 villages are covered by a kiosk which forms the part of the project Gyandoot aimed at spreading the benefits of Information Techlology (IT) to the grassroots level. Incidentally, Gyandoot has won the prestigious Stockholm Challenge Award from amongst 600 IT project entries.

These cyber kiosks also keep the villagers informed about various schemes of the Madhya Pradesh Government from which they can get benefited. All this for a mere Rs 5. Farmers in Madhya Pradesh can easily get to know the rates in agricultural markets (mandis) now. Launched in January 2000, Gyandoot provides daily market rates for a variety of crops at the click of mouse.

On its part, Tamil Nadu Government with the involvement of the London-based communications outfit World Tel headed by India’s one time telecom Czar Sam Pitroda is in the process of setting up a statewide network of community cyber kiosks. This Internet infrastructure besides providing villagers with up-to-date information on a variety of themes could also help the government interact with the people. Importantly, the community Internet content will be in local language. The idea is too have 1,000 such Internet centres in the state. With Tamil Nadu community cyber kiosk, for example, a rice-grower in Tanjore district can transact business with Bathinda based farmer.

In the Veerampattinam village of Pondicherry, the Chennai-based M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has set up an Internet-based information centre which helps the predominantly fishing community get data on weather, ocean conditions and fish availability on a regular basis.

In Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad-based communications outfit ATM Ltd is investing Rs 400-million for putting in place an Internet service providing access to virtually every village in the state. Called, "Veda Online", these cyber kiosks will not only provide communications links to the outside world but also timely information on areas of interest to the villagers and farmers.

Significantly, in Pargaon village of the canerich Western Maharashtra a village-level Internet cafe provides information about the harvesting time for the sugarcane, the results of crop sampling, possible yield and price trends in the sugarcane market. Taking a cue from Gyandoot, the Apple state of Himachal Pradesh is setting up a chain of about 40 rural Internet cafes to help farmers. West Bengal on its part, taking a leaf out of the Tamil Nadu experience, has decided to set up community Internet centres by roping in Worldtel. In Kerala, all local bodies are planned to be networked and connected in a phased manner to bring the fruits of development to the grassroot level.

In the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, UPTRON (Uttar Pradesh Electronics is planning to set up information kiosks all over the state. These kiosks will disseminate the basic information of public interest to the rural masses. This will help persons living in the remote villages to get the data required at the click of the mouse.

It is felt that a trend towards community-based rural-level Internet kiosks would help bring Indian villages into national and global mainstream. "These kind of projects demonstrate that rural consumers can and will benefit from getting connected", quips Aditya Dev Sood, Bangalore Centre for Knowledge Societies. They will enjoy new information about agricultural outputs, news markets for their products and in a few years from now will find new educational and employment opportunities through these human mediated Internet/ Intranet access projects".