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| Events organised by
MSSRF - October 2004 |
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Programme of launching
the Indian Space Research Organization
- M S Swaminathan Research Foundation |
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| Connecting rural India
- Village Resource Centres [VRC] |
| - Prof. M. S. Swaminathan |
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| The task of taking the
benefits of the Internet and the space age
to theCountry's 600,000 villages can be
achieved by bringing about synergybetween
technology and public policy. |
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 THREE
SIGNIFICANT developments in recent months
provide hope for takingthe power of the
Internet and the space age to the country's
600,000villages by August 15, 2007, which
marks the 60th Anniversary of India's"tryst
with destiny". First, a National Alliance
has been formed by awide range of civil
society, industrial, and academic organisations
toharness the power of partnership in achieving
the goals of Mission 2007:every village
a knowledge centre. Second, with support
from Tata Trustsa Jamsetji Tata National
Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity has
beenestablished at the M.S. Swaminathan
Research Foundation for training andelecting
one million rural women and men as Fellows
of the Academy. Theywill be the torch-bearers
of the rural knowledge revolution. Third,
thePrime Minister is launching today the
Indian Space ResearchOrganisation-MSSRF
Village Resource Centre programme. This
programmewill concentrate on helping rural
women, men and children meet theirbasic
needs in education, nutrition, health, drinking
and irrigationwater, agriculture and markets. |
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| Mission 2007 needs for
its success appropriate public policy support.The
policy support needed for sustaining this
movement has beendiscussed among partners
of the National Alliance and I wish to describebriefly
the recommendations of Alliance Partners
for achieving synergybetween technology
and public policy. |
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| At present villages
in India are hardly connected. Almost all
thetelecom operators see rural connectivity
as a loss-making proposition.They want heavy
subsidies to provide minimum connectivity
in thevillages. At the same time, immense
infrastructure, in the form ofoptical fibre
and towers, has been built up in India over
the last 20years. Thanks to the efforts
of the Department of Telecommunications
andBharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and to some
extent the private operators,this infrastructure
is not limited to cities and big towns,
but has gonedeep into the smallest towns,
including almost all taluk headquartertowns.
Also, inexpensive wireless technologies
exist to extendconnectivity from these fibre
optic cable-linked towns to most of thevillages. |
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| However, if left to
the telecom operators focussed on the urban
areas,this connectivity will take years.
The rural areas cannot wait. Thereare smaller
companies, NGOs and other outfits focussed
on providingservices in rural areas. These
organisations should be enabled to usethe
existing infrastructure (fibre backbones
and towers) to providetelecom and Internet
connectivity in the villages. The owners
of theinfrastructure should get a share
of the call charges. |
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| Over 30,000 exchanges
have been connected by fibre. The STD-PCO
model,redesigned to include an integrated
ICT package including the Internet,will
be economically sustainable. Both last mile
technology and firstmile delivery need concurrent
attention. Priority should go to effectiveuse
of the already available infrastructure,
particularly with BSNL.This will call for
some additional investment. Maximising the
benefitsof the fibre infrastructure available
today with the activeparticipation of BSNL
should be a major aim of public policy andinvestments.
Capacity building of ICT-SHGs (Self-help
Groups) and humanresource development are
essential for success. |
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| The Jamsetji
Tata National Virtual Academy for Rural
Prosperityestablished at MSSRF can play
a vital role in this area. It can organisetraining
programmes in the area of distance education
and help enrol atleast one woman and man
as Fellows of the Academy from each village,with
the help of alliance partners. There is
need for investment increating databases
relevant to rural needs. The viability,sustainability
and scalability of the rural knowledge revolutionmovement
will ultimately depend upon the relevance
of ICT to the livesof rural families. Panchayati
raj institutions should be mobilised. TheICT
knowledge centre could be located either
in a village school orpanchayat building
(i.e., public spaces), so that there is
socialinclusion in access. Private sector
industry can play a major role inlinking
rural products with markets. This will help
to mitigate farmers'distress. |
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| Neither
subsidy nor regulation has been able to
get appropriateconnectivity into the rural
areas. Only a business model like that ofSTD-PCOs
would make the telecom and Internet connectivity
economicallyviable in rural areas. The smaller
companies interested in providingservices
in rural India should be encouraged to use,
for profit,business models and whatever
last-mile technologies they chose to extendthe
connectivity to the villages. To help create
viable business models,both cheap connectivity
and cheap spectrum are essential. |
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| TRAI recently
brought out draft recommendations for unified
license inwhich the concept of niche operators
has been introduced for rural areasin particular.
To ensure the efficacy of such efforts even
in the mostbackward areas, Government must
mandate their use of the existinginfrastructure
at terms fixed by the regulator. |
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| To make
the model attractive initially, the charges
for datatransmission may be lower than voice,
for a specific time-frame.Similarly, lower
spectrum charges for a finite period of
time may alsobe considered for the niche
operators. They could also be wooed byavoiding
large upfront payments and providing tax
holidays for a limitedperiod. |
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| Connectivity
is, however, only the first step. What can
the rural peopledo with computers and connectivity?
The need is to strengthen educationand extend
health services in rural India. But going
beyond that, thekey should be to revitalise
the rural economy by creating sustainablerural
micro-enterprises supported by micro credit.
"Education, health,nutrition and livelihoods
for all" should be the ultimate goal
ofMission 2007. |
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| The rural
economy can flourish if ICTs are leveraged
to create newlivelihood opportunities. These
could be in the area of agriculture,food
processing, animal husbandry, fisheries,
sericulture, handicrafts,and even in IT-based
services (which rural India could provide
to urbanareas). Private sector and civil
society organisations should beencouraged
to develop ICT-based supply-chain management
systems to sellrural products. |
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| Complex
technology management must be relegated
to the backend, handledby town and city-based
organisations. The front-end in the villages
mustbe easily manageable. There is need
to invest in creating knowledgedatabases
relevant to rural needs. The content must
be local and mustuse local languages. There
should be provision for making availabledynamic
information, for example about the weather
and markets, as wellas generic information
about entitlements to government programmes,disaggregated
by gender, age, class and caste. |
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| Essential
services such as education and healthcare
can be deliveredthrough ICT penetration
in the rural areas. Government could install
afew computers in the rural schools. Doctors
from Government hospitalscould offer on-line
consultation, particularly for women. |
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| Rural people,
especially the unemployed youth and women,
should beconsidered assets in national development.
The Government could decideas a policy priority
to outsource functions such as digitisation
of landrecords, data entry operations, collation
of local data, and localresource mapping
to the information kiosks run by self-help
andcommunity interest groups with the support
of civil societyorganisations. Panchayati
raj institutions could use connectivity
toprovide accountable and transparent local
governance. Various governmentdata of relevance
to the public, including birth and death
certificates,other registrations, and pension
documentation, could also be madeonline
to facilitate usage. Outsourcing from urban
to rural India wouldbe a powerful method
of bridging the rural-urban digital divide.
Thiswould also help to bridge the gender
divide, if women are enabled tomanage the
rural knowledge centres. |
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| Relevant
social messages in health, education and
governance-relatedissues can be effectively
disseminated through knowledge centres andinformation
kiosks in rural areas. The Government should
outsourcedesigning and developing e-governance
content and services to civilsociety and
professional organisations that can benefit
widercommunities. A number of expert organisations
in agriculture, nutrition,livelihoods, animal
husbandry, post-harvest technology, health,environmental
issues, should be identified to support
e-governanceprogrammes. |
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| A civil
society group should be constituted to monitor
the e-governancepolicies. Such a group can
advise the Government on appropriate methodsof
automating government processes and offering
ICT-enabled services andapplications for
rural communities. |
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| A low-interest
rate lending to rural entrepreneurs, self-help
groups,common interest groups and nominees
of panchayati raj institutions toestablish
knowledge centres and information kiosks
should be considered.Such loans can be issued
via banking institutions such as NABARD,
SBI,etc. to encourage rural entrepreneurship.
A venture capital fund mayalso be established. |
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| The task
of taking the benefits of the Internet and
space age to 600,000villages by August 15,
2007, may appear to be a formidable one.
However,seemingly impossible tasks can be
achieved by harnessing the power ofpartnership
and by bringing about synergy between technology
and publicpolicy, as demonstrated by the
Green Revolution of the 1960s. Theinitiative
being launched by our Prime Minister today
marks thebeginning of a bright chapter in
India's tryst with destiny. |
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| Visit :
ISRO
MSSRF Brochure |
| Visit :
Prime
Ministers Speech |
| Visit :
Press
Release |
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