Taking ICT to Every Indian Village
SummaryText
What can information and communication technology ( ICT) bring for the inhabitants of 600,000 Indian villages? How is India empowering the economically poor and marginalised citizens to participate in the emerging knowledge society? How will India provide voice to her millions of citizens? This book attempts at answering such questions and exploring the complex interactions between ICT and society.
The four papers are:
In the first paper, "Processes and appropriation of ICT in human development in rural India: Bridging the research and practice gaps," the notions of ICT-enabled development is re-exami ned in the context of capabilities approach, laid down notably by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The concept of human development as an assessment methodology for measuring development across the nations has significantly developed and refined by UNDP through a series of Human Development Reports. It is plausible that the developmental impact of ICT on society can be assessed using the human development measurement tools as well. Expanding human capabilities is seen as the prime goal of sustainable development, as noted by Dreze and Sen (2002), "One way of seeing development is in terms of the expansion of real freedoms that the citizens enjoy to pursue the objectives they have reasons to value, and in this sense the expansion of human capability can be, broadly, seen as the central feature of the process of development." According to Sen and Anand (1994), longevity, infant/ child mortality, preventable morbidity, literacy, nourishment and personal liberty and freedom are the basic features of well-being that help in expanding the human capabilities. Various forms of ICTs - capturing, storage, processing, communication and display - infuse knowledge that helps in capabilities expansion. Knowledge is vital in meeting development goals, as experiences from various ICT-assisted initiatives suggest that it amplifies citizen's voices, promotes quality in health and education services, broadens livelihoods bases of the poor and marginalised. The diffusion of ICTs across India so far has so far been modest. The realisation that disproportionate geographical concentration of projects lead to greater disparity across the regions led to the formation of several nation-wide ICT initiatives. Integrating a human development approach to such ICT initiatives is a precondition to the success of these projects.
Rural India presents socially, culturally, economically and politically diverse environs wherein knowledge centres or knowledge gateways operate in. With an average population density of 324 people per km, rural India poses an attractive service population for knowledge centres - though the service provisioning is challenged by two major factors, income poverty and illiteracy, among many others. According to a recent estimate, the proportion of poor in the rural areas declines from 45.65 per cent in 1983 to 27.09 per cent in 1999-2000; similarly, the literacy level stands almost at 60%. With decreasing infrastructural and operational costs, chances of projects becoming self-sustainable are greater. Experiences with projects like Information Village Research Project demonstrate that rural people can acquire ICT skills fast, even without having high-level of literacy. Building institutional linkages is an effective enabler in poverty reduction - as linkages in developmental interventions span across the horizons of social, cultural, economic and political entities and in this chain government structure at various levels functions in a seamless and interoperable fashion.
Paper 3 reviews a selection of projects based on 'capabilities approach'. The literature review suggests that the impact of ICT in developing countries is thus far concentrated on economic development and network expansion. Since independence, India has made tremendous progress in expanding the communications infrastructure of radio and television; nevertheless, the broad socio-economic impact of expansion in ICT sector has been lesser than expected. An alternative evaluation methodology is proposed on the foundation of capability approach to overcome such methodological drawbacks. Project evaluation indicators are developed based upon four criteria - a) local community's access to information from formal state, market and civil society organisations; b) local community's ability to process and evaluate information; c) capacity of local communities to assimilate information in their own lives and produce information for others and d) local community's ability to advocate for local knowledge in public spheres. Projects demonstrate that they are lacking appropriate governance, human, services and technological capacities for delivering to local communities. A review of few projects - Akshaya, Bhoomi, Community Information Centre, Digital Gangetic Plain, e-Chaupal, rural e-Seva, Gyandoot, Information Village Research Project, n-Logue, Tarahaat - show relative project management strengths and weaknesses.
Despite the tremendous growth in telecommunication network, rural India is yet to witness a robust and seamless voice and data connectivity. Evolution of wireless network protocols provides an opportunity to create community-based, bottom-up internet infrastructure at the village levels. Prominent among such network standards is Wi-Fi. The issues of electricity and connectivity is remain a challenge primarily for the government and the private sector who are in the process of rolling-out ICTs throughout the country. It is recommended that appropriate political, regulatory and governance mechanism be created that facilitates growth of shared ICT infrastructure in local communities.
The four papers are:
- Processes and Appropriation of ICT in Human Development in Rural India: Bridging the Research and Practice Gaps
- Human Agencies for Knowledge Connection: Governance of ICT in Rural India
- How the Promises of ICT in Development Are Being Met in India: An Illustrative Comparison and Future Directions for Planning, Implementation and Evaluation of ICT Projects
- ICT Diffusion in Rural India: Current Trends and Emerging Options
In the first paper, "Processes and appropriation of ICT in human development in rural India: Bridging the research and practice gaps," the notions of ICT-enabled development is re-exami ned in the context of capabilities approach, laid down notably by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The concept of human development as an assessment methodology for measuring development across the nations has significantly developed and refined by UNDP through a series of Human Development Reports. It is plausible that the developmental impact of ICT on society can be assessed using the human development measurement tools as well. Expanding human capabilities is seen as the prime goal of sustainable development, as noted by Dreze and Sen (2002), "One way of seeing development is in terms of the expansion of real freedoms that the citizens enjoy to pursue the objectives they have reasons to value, and in this sense the expansion of human capability can be, broadly, seen as the central feature of the process of development." According to Sen and Anand (1994), longevity, infant/ child mortality, preventable morbidity, literacy, nourishment and personal liberty and freedom are the basic features of well-being that help in expanding the human capabilities. Various forms of ICTs - capturing, storage, processing, communication and display - infuse knowledge that helps in capabilities expansion. Knowledge is vital in meeting development goals, as experiences from various ICT-assisted initiatives suggest that it amplifies citizen's voices, promotes quality in health and education services, broadens livelihoods bases of the poor and marginalised. The diffusion of ICTs across India so far has so far been modest. The realisation that disproportionate geographical concentration of projects lead to greater disparity across the regions led to the formation of several nation-wide ICT initiatives. Integrating a human development approach to such ICT initiatives is a precondition to the success of these projects.
Rural India presents socially, culturally, economically and politically diverse environs wherein knowledge centres or knowledge gateways operate in. With an average population density of 324 people per km, rural India poses an attractive service population for knowledge centres - though the service provisioning is challenged by two major factors, income poverty and illiteracy, among many others. According to a recent estimate, the proportion of poor in the rural areas declines from 45.65 per cent in 1983 to 27.09 per cent in 1999-2000; similarly, the literacy level stands almost at 60%. With decreasing infrastructural and operational costs, chances of projects becoming self-sustainable are greater. Experiences with projects like Information Village Research Project demonstrate that rural people can acquire ICT skills fast, even without having high-level of literacy. Building institutional linkages is an effective enabler in poverty reduction - as linkages in developmental interventions span across the horizons of social, cultural, economic and political entities and in this chain government structure at various levels functions in a seamless and interoperable fashion.
Paper 3 reviews a selection of projects based on 'capabilities approach'. The literature review suggests that the impact of ICT in developing countries is thus far concentrated on economic development and network expansion. Since independence, India has made tremendous progress in expanding the communications infrastructure of radio and television; nevertheless, the broad socio-economic impact of expansion in ICT sector has been lesser than expected. An alternative evaluation methodology is proposed on the foundation of capability approach to overcome such methodological drawbacks. Project evaluation indicators are developed based upon four criteria - a) local community's access to information from formal state, market and civil society organisations; b) local community's ability to process and evaluate information; c) capacity of local communities to assimilate information in their own lives and produce information for others and d) local community's ability to advocate for local knowledge in public spheres. Projects demonstrate that they are lacking appropriate governance, human, services and technological capacities for delivering to local communities. A review of few projects - Akshaya, Bhoomi, Community Information Centre, Digital Gangetic Plain, e-Chaupal, rural e-Seva, Gyandoot, Information Village Research Project, n-Logue, Tarahaat - show relative project management strengths and weaknesses.
Despite the tremendous growth in telecommunication network, rural India is yet to witness a robust and seamless voice and data connectivity. Evolution of wireless network protocols provides an opportunity to create community-based, bottom-up internet infrastructure at the village levels. Prominent among such network standards is Wi-Fi. The issues of electricity and connectivity is remain a challenge primarily for the government and the private sector who are in the process of rolling-out ICTs throughout the country. It is recommended that appropriate political, regulatory and governance mechanism be created that facilitates growth of shared ICT infrastructure in local communities.
Publishers
Number of Pages
155
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