..| .. |
June 16-30, 2001 TELECOM |
||
|
Master
File
CHANNELS Politics
|
Bridging the Digital Divide For IT to reach masses in rural/remote areas, it has to be cheap and intelligible. T.H. Chowdary
Affordability First
Apart from the affordability factor, what would be the cost of usage. If access over telephone will cost Rs 25 per hour, it would not be affordable. BSNL is offering a 25 per cent rebate for dial-up access charges in rural areas but this is not sufficient to enthuse rural masses to use the Net. Another issue is the speed and reliability of access. The copper conductors in twisted pairs that the BSNL uses are of low speed. The wireless corDECT access system developed by a group of IIT, Chennai academicians appears to be the most appropriate and economical system, especially because it is indigenously built. Over 60 villages in the Kuppam constituency (Andhra Pradesh) have been using corDECT wireless access, which is faster (70 Kbps) and is more reliable than the copper cable connectivity. Moreover, unlike the dial-up access, which requires Rs 25 per hour, the corDECT wireless access has no such charging at all. Driving the importance of IT in rural areas, Pramod Mahajan, the Union Minister for IT, said in many villages the poor are saying that even though they "have lived without water for ages, they now can't live without a TV, a telephone and an Internet connection". If we can make the PC and Net content as useful and as easily operable as the TV, surely even the poor would like to get on to the network. India can have mass PC and Internet use only if we have useful content for the masses. It may take us long to give physical connectivity by way of roads but we can connect all the villages electronically within five years; the latter is far cheaper, he said. Leveraging IT-enabled Services In the next 15 years, over 400 million people will be released from the agricultural sector. They will have to be made literate and provided employable skills. Here, IT-enabled services hold great promise. These days old words are getting new meaning. For example, Java is not an island but a computer language; Amazon is not a river but a Web site; and an IT park houses only PCs. Similarly, literacy must mean the ability to use PCs, and development must mean networking. Baramati and the Vidya Bharati are a testimony to what could be done in a rural area by people with vision. The 20-acre campus can rival any in the US. These are the ones that demolish digital divide and narrow the gap between the poor and rich and between rural and urban areas. The writer is ex-chairman of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd |
|
Issue Contents Write to us Subscriptions Syndication INDIA
TODAY | BUSINESS
TODAY | INDIA TODAY PLUS © Living Media India Ltd |
 |
 |
The
Vidya Bharati Institute of Information Technology, in association with
Digital Partners of Seattle, US, arranged a two-day conference in Baramati
(Maharashtra) last fortnight. A number of developers of applications
useful to organisations working in rural areas participated in the
conference. IT is to be used for human and economic development in the
rural and remote areas. This would require applications as well as micro
finance. Two women belonging to SEVA from Gujarat described how certain
packages developed for them are helping them to manage the micro finance
and the health of the small enterprises they are fostering.
How
do we take the benefits of IT, especially the Net, to the rural/remote
areas in the language which people understand and how the devices could be
operable by the hardly literate but intelligent folks? If PCs with Net
connections are to cost Rs 50,000 and upwards, they would not be
affordable to even small enterprises, much less the homes. A device being
developed under the direction of Dr Bhatkar (formerly of CDAC) was
demonstrated. This would cost about Rs 12,000 and would use the TV set for
display. It has got a touch pad so that messages written in any language
could be transmitted as E-mail.
