Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 09:39:48 +0530
From: Subbiah Arunachalam
Friends at lis-forum:
I got this mail in another list. Found it extremely interesting and worth
sharing with you all.
Arun
Dear Colleagues:
The recent episode of Media Lab Asia raises an important issue. Can India
go
all alone in applying Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to
Rural Development?
The first question to be answered is, Does the Indian Government believe
that applying ICT is essential for rural development?
On paper there is evidence that it does. On the ground, it looks as if it
is
driven by personalities and not purpose. Many of the Government schemes
and
projects in this area have not been evaluated rigorously or lessons
learned
from them. Applying ICT for rural development is not just opening an
information kiosk but developing the services and content necessary for
supporting activities in rural development. This needs significant
transformation in its Institutions and Organizations. There is strong
evidence that India missed the opportunities offered by the personal
computer and local and wide area networking to improve its Institutions
and
Organizations engaged in rural development and is now missing the
opportunities from use of the Internet to improve governance, health,
food
security, agriculture, education and trade etc. for rural areas.
The second question is what are the strengths of India in going all
alone?
A country that can launch Geo-Stationary Satellites does certainly have
the
technological skills. There are several initiatives in ICT application
for
rural areas that have drawn attention for their innovativeness and it is
said in many International circles that if an "IT cannot work in India,
it
will not work elsewhere in developing countries". India is a leading test
bed of ICT application for rural areas of developing countries and others
use it for testing their ideas. India can certainly do it and if it needs
collaboration, it is more South-South so that costs of innovating the
needed
technologies can be spread around developing countries.
The third question is, what are its weaknesses?
To answer this question, India should look at how other ICTs such as
radio,
television and telephones penetrated into rural areas. Radio receivers in
the 1960's and 70's were made cheaply, batteries became available, the
All
India Radio established a strong network of local radio stations using
medium wave band providing context specific rural information. In 1980's
television black and white television sets became cheaper, low power
transmitters and regional and state level television services were
established. This led to the second generation Cable TV use largely
supported in peri-urban and rural areas by small private entrepreneurs.
Telephones became more ubiquitous, at least on major rural roadsides,
through another public-private partnership of PCOs. The lessons India
should
learn are, let the government create the infrastructure for rural areas
and
let there be public-private partnership for the network and content. In
case
of new ICT, such as for access to the Internet, India would need
public-private-community partnerships.
The weaknesses, as I see it, is not of technology. The type of technology
India needs for providing cheaper access to ICT services in rural area is
already there. What India does not really have is a policy for ICT use
across sectors in rural development. India has a telecomm policy, an
education policy, an agricultural policy, livestock policy etc. but it
has
not integrated ICT either in these policies or integrated these sectoral
policies into an ICT policy for development. Until India does this, It
will
not be able to decide how to lower access costs to ICT based services or
create opportunities for partnerships.
The fourth question is what are the opportunities?
ICT and information access is becoming more a basic necessity just as
electricity and water. The experience of Spain and Portugal of providing
Automatic Teller Machines in rural areas that enabled farmers to access
financial credit which in turn enabled these countries to become the
vegetable and fruit baskets of Europe should be a lesson for India and is
the type of direction needed from the Government to support ICT
application
in rural development. If India can prove success in ICT application in
rural
areas in the next few years, it can be a leader in ICT trade and services
for Asia and Africa.
The fifth question is of threats?
The threats, as I see them, are more from not applying ICT in rural areas
than in going alone. Indian software skills are world renown. With a
billion
people, the domestic market for intellectual capital (information and
because the core issue will be context specific content in health,
agriculture, education etc. which the North does not have for developing
countries and not the hardware.
IMHO India can go alone or with more South-South collaboration in this
area
of applying ICT to rural development. In the revamped Media Lab Asia, let
its main mission be to apply ICT successfully in rural development and
enable India to be a leader in trade and providing ICT services to rural
areas in developing countries. Can Mr. Shourie do this?
Warm regards,
Ajit
