opening doors in rural india

E-GOVERNANCE

Opening Doors in Rural India As the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17) accords high priority to rural development, here is an attempt to give an integrated approach of the ‘g-local’ application of modern technology and review of rural e-government projects in India

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ndia is a nation of villages. The rural mass in the nation comprises the core of Indian society and also represents the real India. According to the Census Data 2011, there are 638,387 villages in India that represent more than 72% of the total population. In a participatory democratic society, ICT can be used for good governance, enhanced democratization, and citizen empowerment.

Digital governance creates better connections between citizens and government and encourages their participation in governance. The process gives a chance to open up the avenues for direct participation of women in government policy making process.

It is also very significant in rural areas where people are deprived of getting benefits of the different integrated development programs. The application of structural and methodological ICT might reduce the social exclusion 28 | July 15, 2012

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which was raised due to lack of proper and quality information services in-time.

To make successful digital governance two major dimensions can be considered—application of information and technology for the betterment of administration and application of governance to the cyber society. In the age of information society, the state can utilize the e-governance to transform the government’s plans and programs and provide efficient, convenient, and transparent services to the rural people and rural businesses sector through ICT. The application of ICT in the rural domain also helps the community development and enhances the mobility and transparency of local self-government. A more flexible approach extends greater sharing of power between the state, the market, and the civil society via network policy.

When e-governance applies to the agricultural sector, it refers to the use of ICTs in delivering governance products and services which are of use to farmers or those working in the agrarian sector. Sharing the information with the agrarian community can fulfill the common needs of farmers. It helps to enhance crop productivity, efficient cattle farm management, providing for national and household level food security, and the conservation of biodiversity.

E-connection broadly depends on technology and the selection of agency. On behalf of the service provider (may be public or private organizations like ICT project ‘E-choupal’ in Andhra Pradesh), the agency takes the entire responsibility to offer connectivity in rural villages.

It should keep in mind that the designing message for e-connectivity should be citizen-centric services and selection of appropriate, dependable, maintainable, and cost effective services. There is a scope to introduce the Public-PrivateDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication

Key Takeaways

n Digital governance creates better connections between citizens and government and encourages their participation in governance n The state can utilize e-governance to provide efficient, convenient, and transparent services to the rural people and businesses through ICT n Given the high incidence of poverty in rural India, e-governance implementation to cover 135 mn rural poor is an increasingly complex process n A good e-governance model provides a platform where various communities and special interest groups represent themselves. It builds an environment with specialized expertise that can help answer questions and guide them to find solutions n The inequity of the economic condition of rural masses should not create any hindrance to access their required information, which is considered one of the basic constraints in any participatory development n Sharing the information with the agrarian community can fulfill the common needs of farmers. It helps to enhance crop productivity, efficient cattle farm management, providing for national and household level food security, and the conservation of biodiversity

Partnership model to form e-stations (kiosks) to enable private entrepreneurs to operate the services profitably and sustainably.

A good e-governance model provides a platform where various communities and special interest groups represent themselves. It builds an environment with specialized expertise that can help answer questions and guide them to find solutions.

This is called ‘community management system’ of e-governance. The main aims of e-governance are: n To strengthen and upgrade the present infrastructure of IT in the ministries n To bring in transparency in its functioning by placing the information n To interlink the functioning of different offices to bring about synergy in the aspiration and enable effective and timely decision making n To develop a public grievances and complaints system and eliminate the need of personal visits to offices by the public n To make available forms and information on the internet and the facility of filling the applications from remote rural areas-web enables application system visit www.dqindia.com

Rural Development

Rural e-governance can provide timely information to the citizens and have the potential to spawn innovative means of wealth generation in the rural context. An earlier research confirms that transaction costs have substantially reduced by adopting automated supply chain management models for selling agriculture produce.

Other studies show that e-government projects are successful in rural India as it acts as an intermediary between government and recipients, while pursuing commercially sustainable objectives.

However given the high incidence of poverty in rural India, e-governance implementation to cover 135 mn rural poor is an increasingly complex process. Another study states that success stories of e-governance in rural India are isolated cases, and says that “sum total of the Indian experience in terms of two important parameters viz villages connected and lives transformed are yet too minimal”.

There are more than 50 grassroot projects currently using modern ICT for development in India. Yet, investigation undertaken of an e-governJuly 15, 2012 | 29

E-GOVERNANCE ance initiative Gyandoot, shows that though it is supposedly popular, its usage is still low and that it is not effective for the poorest of poor in the rural regions.

Studies point out that existing e-governance models are more technology centric, which have been aped from the west and thus do not completely assure rural development in context of developing countries like India.

Emerging studies show that many of the claims that are being made about the potential of ICT for development are not supported, and point to the possible counter-productive effects of the use of ICT. These also suggest that some of the good governance initiatives for poverty alleviation have not translated into social good due to slack institutional mechanisms.

There are also several gaps associated with deployment of the information village projects where the larger goals of empowerment, dignity and ‘preservation of traditional technologies’ are not considered. In view of such limitations, it is important to propose some alternative approaches to rural egovernance projects.

Paradigm Shifts in the Public Sector

The advent of the internet, digital connectivity, the explosion and use of e-commerce and e-business models in the private sector are pressuring the public sector to rethink hierarchical, bureaucratic organizational models. Customers, citizens, and businesses are faced every day with new innovative e-business and e-commerce models implemented by the private sector and made possible by ICT tools and applications, and are requiring the same from governmental organizations.

Recently, the public sector has began to recognize the potential opportunities offered by ICT and ebusiness models to fit with citizens’ 30 | July 15, 2012

The advent of the internet, digital connectivity, the explosion and use of e-commerce and ebusiness models in the private sector are pressuring the public sector to rethink hierarchical, bureaucratic organizational models demands, to offer better services to citizens and to increase efficiency by streamlining internal processes.

ICT is said to cause a ‘paradigm shift’ introducing ‘the age of network intelligence’, reinventing businesses, governments and individuals.

Paradigm shifts prevail in the public sector too. The traditional bureaucratic paradigm is being replaced by competitive, knowledge based economy requirements.

The E-governance Web

The target of e-government encompasses citizens, businesses, governments (other governments and public agencies), and employees.

The electronic transactions and interactions between government and each group constitute the egovernment web of relationships and the respective four main blocks of e-government, that are: n Government to Citizens (G2C): Deals with the relationship between government and citizens.

G2C allows customers to access government information and services instantly, conveniently, from everywhere, by use of multiple channels (PC, Web TV, mobile phone or visit www.dqindia.com

wireless device). It also enables and reinforces their participation in local community life (send an email or contribute to an online discussion forum). n Government to Business (G2B): Consists of the electronic interactions between government agencies and private businesses. The opportunity for companies to conduct online transactions with government reduces red tape and simplifies regulatory processes, therefore helping businesses to become more competitive and establish a web presence faster and cheaper. n Government to Government (G2G): Refers to the relationship between governmental organizations, as for example national, regional and local governmental organizations, or with other foreign government organizations.

Online communication and cooperation allows government agencies and departments to share databases, resources, pool skills and capabilities, enhancing the efficiency and effectivity of processes. n Government to Employees (G2E): Refers to the relationship between government and its employees. G2E is an effective way to provide e-learning, bring employees together and to promote knowledge sharing among them. It gives employees the possibility of accessing relevant information regarding: Compensation and benefit policies, training and learning opportunities, civil rights laws, etc.

The relationships, interactions, and transactions between government and employees in fact constitute another large e-government block, which requires a separate and very careful handling. Many people today refer to employees as internal customers. Thus an e-government initiative has to take into account needs and requirements of this group as well to be customer oriented and centric.

The full exploitation and imple

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E-GOVERNANCE Rural E-government Projects in India

mentation of these complex webs of inter-relationships requires e-administration—for automation and computerization of administrative tasks and for realization of strategic connections among internal processes, departments, and functions; ecitizens and e-services—to realize connections and interrelationships among governments and citizens and to deliver automated services; and e-society—to enable relationships and interactions beyond boundaries, among public agencies, private sector, and civil community in general.

Rural E-government Initiatives

Computerized Rural Information System Project (CRISP): It aimed at facilitating the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) in the monitoring of exercise of poverty alleviation programs through Computer based Information System. Till date, four versions of CRISP application software packages have been developed. The fourth version was renamed Rural Soft. Rural Soft 2000 allows online monitoring of processes right from the desktop of monitoring agencies at the center 32 | July 15, 2012

and state and enables a common man to access information using a browser based interface provided by the software.

National E-Government Action Plan (2003): National EGovernment Action Plan suggested a list of core policies: #1 Overall vision, mission strategy approach #2 E-governance technology architecture, framework and guidelines #3 Human Resource Strategy #4 Policy for front-end facilitation counters, kiosks, integrated service centers #5 Policy on back-end department automation State Wide Network Area Project (SWAN): This project aims at providing high-speed, high-connectivity network connecting offices at block level for faster access to government services. The GDI declared it on October 27, 2004 to bring e-governance to the grassroot levels because to develop a block as the basis tier of development administration, provision of reliable network, connectivity, particularly in rural areas is imperative. visit www.dqindia.com

n E-choupal: To protect Indian farmers from practices of agents who escalate margin costs for their benefit and block market information, the International Business Division of Indian Tobacco Company (ITCIBD) came out with an e-government initiative called e-choupal (which means a village meeting place). E-choupal is useful not only to the agricultural products but also for selling home appliances and consumer goods. Each e-choupal is equipped with a PC, internet connection, printer and Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS). There are 6,500 e-choupals today. ITC is adding 7 new e-choupals a day and plans to scale up to 20,000 e-choupals by 2012 covering 100,000 villages in 15 states, servicing 15 mn farmers. Transactions through these e-choupals may rise to about $2.5 bn by 2010. n Drishtee: Drishtee is a rural model of distribution and promotional network for consumer goods and basic services. Information is provided to the users in the form of services via internet. Drishtee made a presence in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab. A village entrepreneur is trained to handle the software. The hardware includes a web server, a district server, kiosks, and dial-ups. The database of the kiosk gets updated whenever the kiosk gets connected to the district server or the web server. Soochanalayas or centers have been established to cater to 25-30 surrounding villages and buildings of Gram Panchayats. n Akashganga: Akashganga uses ICT to facilitate rural milk producers by integrating all the operations of the rural cooperative society right from milk procurement to accounting. First pilot model of Dairy Information System Kiosk (DISK) is currently under implementation at Uttarsanda Dairy

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Cooperative Society in Gujarat.

One operator is required for filling of cans and another for measuring fat content and updating the PC. The infrastructure used to carry out these operations includes weighing balance, microprocessor, printer, milk analyzers and a display. n Gyandoot: Gyandoot has been established as communityowned, technologically innovative and sustainable information kiosks in a poverty-stricken, tribal-dominated rural area of the state of Madhya Pradesh. Information kiosks have dial-up connectivity. The server hub is housed in the computer room in the district panchayat.

Kiosks have been established in the village panchayat buildings. The entire network of 31 kiosks cover 311 panchayats (village committees), over 600 villages, and a population of around half a million (ie, about 50% of the entire district). n Jagriti E-Sewa: The emphasis of Jagriti is deployment of appropriate, affordable, scalable and sustainable technologies available in the developing countries. The system works on LINUX, which is a ‘License-Free’ operating system.

The whole system can be adapted to any language in the least time. The kiosks are located in villages where there is a sizeable flow of public on a regular basis. Each kiosk is set up to serve about 25,000-30,000 people and is owned and operated by a ‘Kiosk Franchisee’ who is typically an educated youth or an ex-serviceman. It is ensured that the kiosk generates adequate revenue streams so as to justify its operations. n Rural Access to Services through Internet (RASI): Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI), now renamed as RASI, provides internet and voice connectivity to the villages of Madurai district in Tamil Nadu. The project has 100 internet kiosks in more than 100 villages. Current network technology DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication

is based on the CorDECT that was jointly developed by the TeNet group at IIT Madras, Analog Devices Inc. and Midas at Chennai. A CorDECT access center is located roughly 25 km from the kiosks. Internet facility is provided with the help of Wireless Local Loop (WLL). Each kiosk is connected to the website containing information relating to revenue, registration, rural development, education, health, agriculture and animal husbandry. The major source of income for the operators has been computer education for children. n Tata Kisan Kendra (TKK): Tata Chemicals came out with TKK to help farmers in states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab. The TKK tracks key parameters relevant to farmers, such as soil, ground water, and weather on a real-time basis with the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Satellite image processing can help detect unproductive farming practices, track the progress of insect attacks across states, get crop estimates or update maps. Currently there are 11 main kiosks and around 300 franchisee TKKs and is looking to set up 40 more kiosks and 800 franchisees to serve 48,000 villages. n LokMitra: LokMitra project was developed by the National Informatics Center (NIC) in Himachal Pradesh, in order to provide easy access at remote areas and to redress complaints. The LokMitra Intranet in Hamirpur district consists of 2 Pentium III based servers, with 4 Pentium III-based client systems.

The servers and the clients are connected on a LAN. The client systems are used by the officials from concerned departments for answering the complaints and queries received and for updating with information.

The LokMitra software interface is web-enabled and user-friendly. n N-Logue: N-Logue Communications provides telecom and internet services in small towns and rural arvisit www.dqindia.com

eas of India. For operational purposes N-Logue divides the country into service areas corresponding approximately to a taluka (Tehsil). Eightyfive percent of taluka headquarters in India have optical fiber today which acts as the backbone for telecom and internet connectivity. N-Logue ties up with a number of content providers such as state government, rural development ministry, agricultural ministry and fertiliser/pesticide manufacturers. N-Logue employs WLL technology as the basis for its village-level communications. n Bellandur Project: Bellandur Project is a gram panchayat e-government solution. Working closely with the panchayat members and village residents, the software was designed to suit the needs of panchayat administration. Bellandur Rational Unified Process (RUP), a set of software engineering tools, enables a phased and iterative approach to e-government. n Kisan Call Centers: Mainly respond to the issues raised by farmers instantly in the local language on a continuous basis.

The department of agriculture & cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture launched this scheme during April 2002 with a view to leverage the extensive telecom infrastructure in the country to deliver the extension services to the farming community.

But there is a need to improve the awareness among farmers on KCCs, particularly the cost-free services through toll-free telephone so as to benefit needy farmers. Therefore Ministry of Agriculture has developed a plan to strengthen the communications of KCC, the agriculture and line departments. n

Arpita Sharma

The author is a doctoral research scholar maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in (This is the first of a 3-part series) July 15, 2012 | 33