View of ICT AND ITS ROLE IN RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

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Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98 ISSN: 2456-1037 (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) Vol. 04, Issue 03,March 2019 Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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ICT AND ITS ROLE IN RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Dr. Indradeo Singh

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Physics, Govt. P.G. College, Noida, GB Nagar (UP) 1 INTRODUCTION

ICTs can play a significant role in combating rural and urban poverty and fostering sustainable development through creating information rich societies and supporting livelihoods. If ICTs are appropriately deployed and realize the differential needs of urban and rural people, they can become powerful tools of economic, social and political empowerment. The vast majority of poor people lives in rural areas and derives their livelihoods directly or indirectly from agriculture. Increasing the efficiency, productivity and sustainability of small- scale farms is an area where ICT can make a significant contribution. Farming involves risks and uncertainties, with farmers facing many threats from poor soils, drought, erosion and pests. ICTs can deliver useful information to farmers about agriculture like crop care and animal husbandry, fertilizer and feedstock inputs, pest control, seed sourcing and market prices.

Rural development is a veritable tool for fighting poverty and achieving economic prosperity at the grassroots level. The concept of rural development embraced by most countries connotes a process through which rural poverty is alleviated by sustained increases in the productivity and incomes of low – income workers and households.

The true success of any comprehensive, economic and social development programme in Nigeria is primarily dependent upon the extent to which it contributes to the well being of those living in the rural areas. This is because the bulk of the country’s population, resources particularly land, natural and mineral resources are in these areas. Much as the problem of rural poverty has been noted, even globally, there are yet controversies among policy makers on appropriate concepts of rural development and by extension, appropriate policies and strategies for eradication of rural poverty. Various governments of India have tried several programmes, approaches and strategies aimed at improving the conditions of the rural poor and while some of the efforts

are still on course, many have since gone moribund. Central in the varying objectives of the programmes was the target of alleviating poverty, which was heavily biased towards agriculture and rural development.

The Rural development in India is one of the most important factors for growth of the Indian economy. The present strategy of rural development mainly focuses on poverty alleviation, better livelihood, provision of basic amenities and infrastructure facilities.

Even after so many years after independence India have not been able to move to the stage of “developed nation”, the nation is still developing. Public administration, governed by bureaucratic structures built on rationale principles, that dominated the twentieth century, has failed to respond to the changing requirements of the present times.

Application of ICT is a paradigm shift to the traditional approaches that the government has been using past so many decades. Design and development of ICT system, such a system performs the activities such as links speedily appropriate information sources needed for ICT services in India for rural community.

2 CHALLENGES OF ICT APPLICATION IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT

ICTs alone can't bring about rural development. Education is one of the basic problems for application of ICT as 40% of India’s population is illiterate. All modern economies have demonstrated in the past that education is the first step to building the capacity which people can then use. If the Indian economy grows at 5-6 per cent per annum as it has been growing over last 2-3 years, then over 10- 15 years the size of the Indian economy would have doubled. Even with this level of growth it cannot by any means bridge disparities and eradicate poverty.

Therefore introducing ICTs alone will not meet the development challenge. For ICTs to succeed in India, education for all must be the first priority.

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2 It is, of course, important to note that the proportion of the economy involved in some or other form of adaptation or usage of ICT is still very small. The proportion of people involved in the ICT Industry, especially in the rural areas is negligible. Thus, another priority action, in order for the benefits of ICT to trickle down as well as contribute to the rural prosperity, would involve setting up several rural and village level micro- enterprises.

3 ICT INITIATIVES IN INDIA FOR RURAL COMMUNITY

Former President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has coined a new term, PURA (Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas) that describes coherent knowledge and resources distribution across the country. The PURA will deliver three types of connectivity: physical connectivity by providing roads in rural areas, electronic connectivity by providing reliable communication network and knowledge connectivity by establishing more professional institutions and vocational training centres. Schools with best infrastructure and teachers who love teaching, primary health centres, silos for storage of products and markets for promoting cottage industries and business, employment opportunities for artisans are some of the elements of PURA. PURA will also help in poverty removal. He has also envisaged establishing Village Knowledge Centres across India. To implement visions of President of India and other contemporary social reformists, Government of India and other agencies have taken up a number of programmes and initiatives across the country. Some initiatives are based on successful partnership between private bodies (like, corporate and NGOs) and public bodies (like, village Panchayats), this may known as private public (PP) partnership, e.g., eChoupal, TARAHaat. Some initiatives provide

Government to Citizens (G2C) interface to ensure better transparency in governance, e.g., Bhoomi, Gyandoot, Community Information Centres, etc. These community information centres provide various kinds of community information required by common citizens, e.g.

education, health, nutrition, sanitation, agriculture, wholesale prices of agricultural products, village industries, weather, land records, utilities (such as, ration cards, driving licenses, birth certificates, death certificates, caste certificates, income certificates, etc.), and so on. Some projects have coverage in particular areas, e.g. Bhoomi (covering land records), whereas some other initiatives have coverage in an array of areas, e.g. Community Information Centres (covering education, health, utilities, etc.). Most of these initiatives are establishing information kiosks or cyber cafes at the village and the semi-urban areas, with the hardware, software, network, telephone and power supports from the respective institutions involved, and with the participations of the self- help groups or volunteers who will run the information kiosks at the doorsteps of the villagers and common citizens. VSAT terminals are also provided in few initiatives, like, Community Information Centres and eChoupal, where telephone connectivity is not adequately available.

These community information initiatives deliver e-literacy programmes to the common citizens where basic skills of using computers and Internet are imparted. These initiatives also deliver information literacy training to the users of information kiosks, where learners know how to use information resources available within the respective initiative’s portal, intranet and Internet, and how these information can be used in solving the problems of individuals in their vocational (e.g. agricultural know how), personal (e.g. getting a certificate) and social (e.g. sanitation) life.

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Rural Community Information Initiatives in India Name of the Project (with Web Address) Coverage Institutions Involved Type of Participation

Name of the Project

(with web address) Coverage Institutions involved Type of

Participation Common Service Centre

(CSC)

(www.mit.gov.in/default.asp?id=825)

Establish 1000,000Common ServiceCentres in 600,000

villages of India

Department of Information Technology; Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Service Limited

G2C

Akhaya

(www.akshaya.net) 1 State (Kerala) Kerala State Information

Technology Mission G2C Bhoomi

(www.revdept-01.kar.nic.in) 1 State (Karnataka) Revenue Department;

National

Informatics Centres

G2C

Community Information Centres (CIC)

(www.cic.nic.in)

10 States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Jammu

& Kashmir)

Ministry of Development of NorthEastern Region

(DONER);

National Informatics Centres G2C

Digital Gangetic Plane

(www.iitk.ac.in/mladgp) 1 State (Uttar Pradesh) Media Lab Asia, IIT Kanpur G2C Drishtee

(www.drishtee.com) 5 States (Haryana, Punjab, Madhya

Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar)

Drishtee Ltd. PP

eChoupal

(www.echoupal.com) 6 States (Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,

Uttar

Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan); 31,000 villages.

International Business Division of

ITC Limited

PP

Gyandoot

(www.gyandoot.nic.in) 1 District (Dhar district of Madhya

Pradesh state)

Gyandoot Samiti & National Informatics Centres G2C Rural e-Seva

(www.westgodavari.org) 1 District (West Godavari district

of Andhra Pradesh state)

West Godavari District

Administration G2C

TARAhaat

(www.tarahaat.com) 4 States (Punjab, Haryana, MadhyaPradesh, Uttar

Pradesh)

Development Alternatives PP

Village Knowledge Centres (VKC)

(www.mission2007.org)

600,000 villages across India by

the year 2007

National Alliance for Mission 2007, NGOs, Department of Information Technology, Ministryof Panchayati Raj, Ministry ofAgriculture,

National

Bank forAgriculture and Rural

Development, etc.

G2C, PP

4 CONCLUSION

In the future we will witness tremendous changes in the rural community. We will see a globalisation of the information culture, where currency and fast access - especially through the Internet - to information become highly pertinent. It can also be predicted that information technology will remain the driving force behind processes of change.

People will be exposed to a range of new technological challenges and opportunities in the digital age, which will change the industrial production, service provision, markets, organisational structures, professional roles, etc. in a pervasive way. We only have to look back a few years to see what personal computing in fact has done to the way we spend our working life and leisure time. Rural information systems have traditionally focused on supplying

information to the rural poor and supplying information about rural areas to policy makers, but it is now recognised that past systems have been largely ineffective in addressing the needs of the rural poor. The extension of agricultural information in particular is evolving beyond merely transmitting messages (although this is still important). It is becoming more open, more participatory and more demand driven, involving interactivity, negotiation and two- way information exchanges. There is a new emphasis on the acquisition of information and enabling the rural poor to request information specific to their particular livelihood needs. Communication specialists increasingly recognise the enormous potential of ICTs to support and enhance these changes. With information being considered as power to empowerment the

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4 concept that are emerging today are

“Information rich” and “Information Poor”

societies. In the present era we know without knowledge people can’t survive in the society.

ICT activities are a fundamental element of any rural development activity. While education and training develop cognitive skills, it is information that gives content to knowledge. The importance of information for development is undoubted but important issues surround whose reality the information reflects, who is able to make use of that information and for what purpose.

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Abdul Kalam, A.P.J. (2005). Address to the nation by the President of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on the eve of 56th Republic Day.

2. David Paul A. and Dominique Foray (2002).

Economic Fundamentals of the Knowledge Society. Policy Futures in Education –An e-Journal, 1(1).

3. Kelles-Viitanen Anita (2003).The Role of ICT in Poverty Reduction. A paper written for EVA.

4. Bhatnagar S.C. (2004). E-Government: From Vision to Implementation – A Practical Guide with Case Studies, SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.

5. Gujarathi, D. M. and Patil R. S. (2009). Role of ICT and e-governance for Rural Development.

International Referred Research Journal,1(9).

6. Nayak, S.K.; Throat, S.B. and Kalyankar, N.V.

(2010). Reaching the unreached: A Role of ICT in sustainable rural development. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security, 7(1), 220-224.

7. Mukherjee, Sushmita (2011).Application of ICT in rural development: Opportunities and challenges.

Global Media Journal 2(2).