Empowering Villagers via ICT (Text Format)

FPJ – OPED – Empowering Villagers via ICT

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Empowering Villagers via ICT

 

Information & Communication Technology – (ICT) are the computing and communications facilities and features that variously support teaching, learning and a range of activities in education.

 

Our India is a country of villages. About 627,000 of them scattered through the country. Most are very small with a population of about 1000 people. Development of the villagers is what will bring about development of India.

 

Despite our dependence on rural India and the agro-based economy, one third of our poor brothers and sisters are living in villages where infrastructure like communication network, roads, transport, power supply, health care and education system is under-developed…due to lack of information, education and guidance.

 

Fortunately, different models related to ICT in Indian agriculture is helping villagers in substantial ways.

 

1. GyanDoot: This project in Madhya Pradesh was initiated by local administrative authorities in consultation with gram panchayats. It is a role model to bring governance and rural information kiosks at the doorsteps of tribal India.

 

2. SARI (Sustainable Access in Rural India): A collaborative model between India’s best technology institutes like IIT-Chennai, MIT Media Lab-Asia and Harvard University, this project links 1000+ villages in Mudurai. The objectives are to provide easy and affordable access to rural entrepreneurs to empower them.

 

3. E-Choupal: The model by the corporate ITC is successfully bridging the gap between rural community and buyers and increasing the income level of the farmers by reducing middlemen. The model has also generated various employment opportunities in central and northern India for rural educated youths. www.echoupal.com

             

4. Tara Haat: This private sector initiative to provide online services to large number of rural communities in Punjab and MP. One innovative aspect is its highly interactive and graphics–interface systems, which allow semi-literate and illiterate users enhanced access to products and services. www.tarahaat.com

 

7. Simputer: Developed with the aim to offer low cost computing for rural community, the Simputer is an innovation of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengalooru. The hardware cost is very low so that rural consumers can also buy it and have access to free information and knowledge. www.simputer.org

             

 

10. Swayam Krishi Sangam: SKS uses smart cards to promote micro finance programs to reduce poverty by reaching out 25,000 poor families in 1000 villages in Medak Dist. of AP. www.sksindia.com

 

 

11. SEWA (Self Employed Women Association): A volunteer initiative to empower rural women in Gujarat and UP by self-employment at home is one of the most successful models in the Indian social sector. Today thousands of women SHGs (Self Help Groups) are involved with SEWA and the implementation of their ICT has brought much better results in marketing and networking for them globally. www.sewa.org

             

 

12. Drishtee: This rural network by a private company delivers services and related information to the village community through an ICT Center called Drishtee Soochnalaya. These Information Kiosks have a service delivery-based revenue model to be run by entrepreneurs from the village itself.  www.drishtee.com

             

 

ICT has also provided young villagers with educational classes as well as employment opportunities. It has guided the students in choosing their career and has shown them ways of achieving it. With the coming of ICT in villages and the opening of new employment opportunities, migration has lessened, retaining intelligent minds in villages to plan the further development.

 

Various NGOs have started providing online classes to village children as well as adults, job applications are also available to the youngsters online and women can sell their handicrafts online on reasonable rates. Today an artist of Madhubani painting sitting in some remote village knows the value of his painting. Youngsters can not be misguided by someone asking for Rs.10,000 to make him an actor in Bollywood.

 

ICT education programs in various states have served the purpose in a fruitful way e.g.

 

Mobile Classrooms: IT buses in Rural India-

Using buses converted into mobile computing classrooms to spread IT literacy among rural school students, this World Bank project is being piloted in Pune district. An initial investment of Rs. 4.5 crores will be used for buying computers, salaries of instructors and for buying new buses and reconditioning old ones. Buses will be converted into mobile computing units by removing the seats and replacing them with battery-powered computers. The buses will travel from one school to another in rural Pune, teaching basic computer skills along with typing knowledge through local language curriculum. If successful, the project will be replicated in other parts of the country.  

 

Rural Relations-

Is a rural consumer relations organization in Pune which is taking second-hand computers to 28,000 village schools to prepare children from rural areas for life and work in the modern age,. Used computers are collected from donors and given to schools free of cost, after a through analysis of ICT readiness. After the schools see the value of using the computers in their classroom, it is hoped that the school will seek funds on its own to either upgrade the existing computer or then buy a new one and initiate computer education. 

 

 

Indira Soochna Shakti –

This is a project in Chhattisgarh towards “seamless access to IT education for all girls in high schools”. The project mission is to work in all 1605 of the state government’s high schools by delivering four years of IT instruction to girls through a public-private sector partnership, where a private entrepreneur has been provided space in schools and permitted commercial IT use outside school timings. Volunteers then share networked handheld community computers in villages and help route information and information-enabled services of local relevance to the communities.  

 

NGOs are also very active and influential in advocating Information and Communication Technology by reaching out to rural areas, conducting educational programmes, opening information kiosks, encouraging people to volunteer and convince villagers.

 

SAATHII, (Solidarity and Action Against the HIV Infection in India), with its centers in Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad, was among the first non-profit organisations to use ICT tools in the HIV/AIDS area.

 

NGOs like Deepalaya, New Delhi, whose mission is to promote the overall development of unprivileged communities, with a particular focus on education – use ICT to offer computer classes to their students, starting at the age of 10 (6th grade).

Government, Citizens and the NGOs- where all the three of them are trying to make the best use of this ICT revolution, there are few such organizations, which have formulated ICT as the information center in its real sense. Karmayog (www.karamyog.org ) is a very pertinent example of this. Karmayog has used ICT to create a free platform for the Indian non-profit sector. Nonprofits can provide information about themselves, their needs and their functions through the website. They can display their profiles, events, job vacancies and ask for volunteers, materials, services and funds. Similarly the citizens can find a pool of information on various social and civic issues, lodge complaints on various problems, give suggestions via forums and also show their interest in helping the nonprofits.

Do log on today and participate via ICT.

By:

Neha Mishra

reachnehamishra@indiatimes.com

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Send your views and news to info@karmayog.org . Karmayog, Shreeniwas House, 2nd floor, H. Somani Marg, Fort, Mumbai 400001. Tel: 22000478 / 22013535. Fax: 22035410.

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