Posted June 2000
By Murali Shanmugavelan
Research Associate
The HINDU Media Resource Centre for Ecotechnology and Sustainable Development
This article was published by the International Institute of Communication, United Kingdom, in the journal INTERMEDIA (Issue 2000, vol. 28, no. 1). The article shows how Information Technology is used in India to help reduce the development gap at the village level. Many of the issues addressed in the article, especially those related to rural access to information technologies and the development of content that is locally relevant, are similar to those addressed by the FAO Communication for Development Group. For example, the group, in collaboration with FAO's World Agricultural Information Centre (WAICENT), is developing an innovative tool called "FARMnets", which are farmer-operated electronic networks that facilitate local access to marketing, price, weather and other essential agricultural production information.
The ongoing Information Technology (IT) Revolution has opened up uncommon opportunities to developing countries in terms of providing low cost access to information. `The fastest-growing tool of communication ever,' with the number of users expected to grow from 150 million today to more than 700 million in 2001 (UNDP, Human Development Report, 1999). Given that the same trend in user patterns continues, more than two-thirds of these people will be from developed nations. This divide between the North and the South has once again confirmed that history has always widened the gap between the haves and have-nots.
As we enter into the knowledge-based century, which will be dominated by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Intellectual Property, the developing countries will suffer from unequal distribution of scientific knowledge and be deprived of every reasonable opportunity towards development. "Writing computer programmes and revealing genetic codes have replaced the search for gold, the conquest of land and the command of machinery as the path to economic power".1 While knowledge goes online, the internet divides the educated from the illiterate, the rich from the poor; men from women; young from old and urban from rural. Here are some facts extracted from the UNDP, Human Development Report, 1999:
Predictably, many fear that while ICT connects people who mostly belong to developed nations, it excludes the major population from the developing nations. To put it in simpler terms, apartheid based on technology has come to exist.
Access to internet is the major problem in developing nations. Poor quality of connectivity, low bandwidths are very common problems. In India, waiting for years to own a telephone connection in most parts, except metropolitan areas, is still common. The recent National Telecom Policy 1999 (NTP 99) says that it has achieved an urban Public Call Office (PCO) penetration of 1 PCO per 522 persons (95. 78 per cent) as against the target of 1 per 500 and provided rural telephones to only 310,000 villages (51.01 per cent) as against the target of 600,000 villages. The teledensity of the country is 2.202, with the rural teledensity 0.43, while the cellular mobile teledensity of the nation is 0.12.4 The Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), a regulatory body of Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has recommended a tariff rate5 that will result in a 41 percent decrease in State Trunk Dialling (within India) and 48 per cent in International Subscriber Dialling (International calls) by the end of 2002. However, DoT has agreed to reduce the tariff for 1999-2000 alone.
In a measure to increase the cellular mobile phone use, the TRAI's telecommunication tariff order 1999 stipulated free incoming calls for cellular users while the charge would be paid by fixed line callers. However, Delhi High Court stayed TRAI's `calling party pays' system. One can clearly see the number of urban fixed telephones and cellular mobiles are growing with the help of policy initiatives and market potential. At the same time, more thrust towards wiring rural people, especially in a country like India where large sections of people live in rural areas, is needed. Unless these people are connected, `India going on-line' will once again divide the rich and the poor. It needs more conviction and political will to focus the rural unconnected in the Market age.
The second major problem with regard to using ICT is content availability in the internet. Even if a person from a developing country is connected, s/he is connected to western information. 97 per cent of all internet hosts are in developed nations, home to 16 per cent of the world's population. 6 Statistics show the majority of users are from developed nations. Naturally, the information available on line is not meant for developing countries citizens. The information for development from developing countries perspectives and the database creation of local knowledge and practices according to their demand is little available or not at all. More than the access to technology, content creation seems to be a very difficult task.
Take the case of indigenous knowledge and traditional agricultural practices in a country like India, which is precious. Eminent people like Professor M.S.Swaminathan have been emphasising the need to document such practices to help sustainable development for a better world. Unless a specific content creation effort is going to take place, there is a greater risk of this knowledge being endangered. The developing nations will have to borrow the technology and not necessarily all the content.
However, the challenge for the development lies in not condemning this wonderful technology, but an appropriate application for rural development. M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai (formerly Madras), India is carrying out an experimental project in villages in Pondicherry, about 160 kilometres from south of Chennai. Half of the people live below the poverty line (earning less than Rs. 25 per day). This project, known as `Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Food Security', is designed to provide information to local rural people according to their needs and demands. It is designed using both analog wireless technologies and two dial-up internet connections connected to two telephones.
After the baseline survey carried out by the team led by Dr Venkataraman Balaji, a small town, Villianur, was chosen to be the administrative headquarters of 4 information shops. These four shops are setup in different villages around Villianur, all within 15 kilometres, Kizhur, Embalam, Veerambattianam, and Poornakuppam. With the help of Participatory Rural Appraisal, the local people have been involved in choosing the actual location, providing rent free space and electricity, and recruiting volunteers (50 per cent women, to ensure their participation).
In order to arrive at a reasonably clear picture of the state of existing communication habits and channels in the project areas, especially among the poorer households, a detailed survey7 covering 10 per cent of the resident families in the proposed area of coverage is being carried out since April 1998. From an analysis of the available data, certain trends emerged. For example, of the total 4373 households were surveyed, the telephone density is as low as .0089 phones per household. Reach of electronic media, especially television, is reasonably high when one considers the prevalence of poverty in the villages surveyed (1,129 TV sets for 4373 households of which 424 are cable connected). The predominant sources of information are the local (petty) shopkeeper, the market place, and the (agri) input supplier. A very considerable amount of information transaction takes place between the rural poor households and this also acts as a primary source of information. In other words, the information channels start and terminate within the supra-locality.
As the services provided by the Government are inadequate both in terms of technology and contents (entitlements, organograms and schemes, for example) the information shops fill the gaps in empowering people with information.
Each centre will contain data on health-related information especially that relating to women and children, a directory of government schemes available to rural families, local prices (agricultural input or produce), cultural/public events in the locality, local transport/traffic details including timing, grain prices in Pondicherry region, input prices (quality seeds/fertilisers) in Pondicherry region, a directory of general and crop insurance schemes, a directory of hospitals and medical practitioners in Pondicherry-Grouped with specialisations such as orthopaedics, paediatrics etc, as well as information about integrated pest management in rice crops and pest management in sugarcane crops.
These databases are in Tamil (except the families below poverty line data, which is an official document in English) and available in all the village centres. Updates are transferred using the wireless network. In addition, interactive CD-ROMs for health-related issues have been developed, where FAQs (frequently asked questions) are posed to medical practitioners, whose replies are videoed and converted to realvideo format for retrieval using a PC. Topics related to general hygiene, dental and oral hygiene, and eye have been covered. (The videoing was conducted in health camps organised by the village communities)
Information demand is different in each village; hence great care is being taken to address the need for location specific information. For example, Veerampattinam is a coastal village with 98 per cent of the families involved in fishing. The information requirements in this village are different from other villages and more focused on the safety of fishermen while at sea, on fish/shoal occurrence near shore, and on techniques for post-harvest processing. United States' military web site (www.nemoc.mil.navy) has been accessed twice a day from Chennai office, to download the weather forecast of this region, which will be reformatted and translated into Tamil at Villianur office and sent to Veerampattinam on a daily basis.
The village knowledge centres were also provided with solar-hybrid system as the primary source of power. They have been designed and supplied by the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).
MSSRF has made it clear that it would withdraw after a period of time. This has made the villagers think about the issue of sustainability. In Embalam, the village administration has decided to apportion some amount every year out of the proceeds of Tamarind tree auction. In Veerampattinam, villagers are paying Re. 1/- for every local call they make. These are signs of becoming self-reliant. However, will the villagers be willing to pay for information to sustain the information shop after MSSRF's withdrawal? They should be if IT becomes a priority in their daily lives, something they continue to subscribe to like cable television. In any case, this is a promising example of a creative project addressing the global information divide by getting rural areas connected.
1 UNDP, Human Development Report, 1999
2 http://www.itu.int/ti/industryoverview/at_glance/basic99.pdf
3 Group on Telecommunications (GoT): Draft Discussion Discussion Paper for New Telecom Policy 1999
4 http://www.itu.int/ti/industryoverview/at_glance/basic99.pdf
5 Indian Express, 28 October 99
6 M.S.Swaminathan, Science and Basic Human Needs (keynote paper
delivered) at the World Conference on Science, Budapest, 26 June 1999
7 MSSRF baseline survey
|
