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I-WAYS, Digest of Electronic Commerce Policy and Regulation 27 (2004) 190196 190IOS Press

E-Commerce Developments

Enhancing Developmental Opportunities by

Promoting ICT Use: Vision for Rural India1

Narinder ChhibberSecretary-General, PTC India Foundation

Abstract. The foremost benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in developing countries can be in

improving governance including public safety and eradication of illiteracy. The benefits of ICTs have not reached the masses in

India due to lack of ICT infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, where two-third of the population of the country lives. Even

in cities and suburban areas, use of ICTs is not popular due to lack of awareness to its use, computer illiteracy, and absence of

practical applications.

India is the largest country in South Asia, with a population of over one billion people and its telecom sector is presently

experiencing fast growth phases. However telephony penetration in villages is less than two percent of the rural population and

about 15 percent of the villages are still without any telephony service. Universal access to ICTs in rural areas has been planned

and is being implemented through Public Tele Info Centers having voice data and video, as majority of villagers in India cannot

afford a separate home connection.

Illiteracy in rural areas is as high as 40 percent and in some tribal belts hardly about 20 percent people are literate. There are

35 million children in age group of 611 years, who are out of school and one out of four drops out during primary classes.Education and training, therefore, must be given the top priority if advantages of ICTs are to be harnessed.

Indian economy is agriculture based and employs maximum workforce. Improvement in agriculture productivity can help in

reducing rural poverty. Adoption of ICT in agriculture will play an increasingly important role in crop production and natural

resource management.

The other critical factor is technological challenges for universal access to ICTs to bring down the network access cost. Two

impressive projects, named Gramdoot and Gyandoot are being implemented in some states for e-governance and to provide

Public Tele-Info Centers for voice and Internet access. One is through use of optical fiber technology using rapidly deployable

cost effective, low capacity, fiber optic cable and the other is based on wireless local loop/V-SAT technology, However, so far

only small parts of some states have been covered and large parts of the rural area are still uncovered due to financial constraints

and absence of a workable business model. Universal Service Obligation fund or Government subsidy is also in place to speed

up universal access coverage. Work is also going on development application programs and content in different local languages.

The need is, a coordinated effort through a nodal agency under the central government with full involvement of the industry, state

governments/local administration, education, medical and agriculture sectors, to provide universal access to ICTs with importantservices/information integrated, to the rural masses. ITU has also plans to provide guidance and help, as these objectives are part

of WSIS 2003 declaration.

1. Introduction

Majority of the rural population in India have verylow per capita income, low literacy rate, poor infras-

1Presented at ITU Telecom Asia 2004, Busan, South Korea, 711September 2004.

tructure facilities and hardly any employment opportu-

nities except agriculture or manual labor in the fields.

Not very many people in villages can afford even an

ordinary telephone connection at home and hence the

concept of village public telephones has become a stan-

dard practice in rural areas of developing countries. In-

ternet and broadband access are now considered essen-

ISSN 1084-4678/04/$17.00 2004 IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved

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N. Chhibber / Enhancing Developmental Opportunities by Promoting ICT Use 191

tial for economic and social development of a coun-

try. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT),Government in India has, therefore, already started up-

grading the public telephone kiosks into Public Tele-

Info Centers, where voice, data (high-speed Internet)

and video conference facilities will be provided to the

nearby citizens on nominal charges for availing on-line

services. Similar initiatives are needed by education,

health and state administration departments to plan and

provide funding for integrating ICTs in schools, health

centers and for providing on-line government services

to the people.

Agriculture is the primary occupation of nearly 70

percent of Indian population, but it contributes only 23

percent of GDP. There is thus a need for improving its

productivity and efficiency. The economy of the agri-

culture sector largely remains vulnerable to whether

uncertainties, market inefficiencies and investment re-

lated hurdles. ICT can educate and encourage farm-

ers to diversification of agriculture into less explored

areas like horticulture, floriculture and oilseeds. Sim-

ilarly, use of ICT can encourage organized financial

institutions for lending cash to farmers and make in-

tegrated risk management approach through insurance

cover available. This will not only make the agricul-

ture economy to grow faster but would also stimulate

off-form rural employment to village youths.Government of India has set a target of 20 million

broadband connections and 40 million Internet sub-

scribers for the country by the year 2010. This includes

at least one Public Tele-Info Centers in each village

with a population exceeds 2000. Even the World Sum-

mit on Information Society (WSIS) convened by ITU

in December 2003 at Geneva has outlined a target to

bring ICTs within the reach of half the worlds popu-

lation and with all schools, villages and hospitals by

2015.

But India has the capability to reach the target earlier

and integrate ICTs providingaffordable Internet/simple

broadbandconnectivityof minimum speed of 256Kbps

to meet the requirements of e-learning, e-governance,

tele-health, e-transactions and entertainment.

2. Policy Approaches for Faster Rollout of Rural

Communications

Liberalization of telecommunication sector in India

started in early nineties and by 1997 an effective and

a fairly independent Regulator was in place. Sub-

sequently the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate

Tribunal has also been formed. While world-class

telecommunication services including broadband ser-vices are now available in urban areas, rollout of net-works in rural areas still remains a cause of concern.Major responsibility of rural communication servicesand its modernization are still with the Governmentowned incumbent operator as there has been a generalreluctance amongst new entrants to meet the rolloutobligation in rural areas due to low return on invest-ment.

The Government of India has set up a separate sec-tion for administrating Universal Service ObligationFund in the year 2002, under Ministry of Commu-nications for implementing Universal service support

policy. The funds created by Universal Service Levyare spent in rural and remote areas on both public ac-cess telephones and individual household telephones.USO Fund is provided for installation of new VillagePublic Telephones (VPTs), additional rural communityphones in villages where population exceeds 2000 andreplacement of VPTs installed before 1.4.2002 (notworking satisfactorily due to out-dated wireless tech-nology). Up-gradation of existing VPTs in a phasedmanner to PublicTele-Info Centers (PTICs) is also to beundertaken to provide wideband applications like tele-education, tele- medicine, based on two basic channelsof 128 Kbps. Implementation is through multi-layered

bidding process on least quoted subsidy support basis.The Government of India has reaffirmed its commit-

ment to faster development of rural infrastructure. TheGovernment in its budget for the year 20042005 hasallotted Rupees 80 billion (US$1.75 billion) for ruralinfrastructure development that includes telecommuni-cation services. Ownership restriction has been a ma-jor obstacle for foreign companies interested in enter-ing Indian markets. It has been estimated that to meetan overall projected growth of 78 percent; the Indiantelecom sector would require around US$50 billion, arequirement that can only be fulfilled through interna-tional funds. To overcome the ownership restriction,

the Government of India has envisaged raising the FDIlimit for telecom sector from the present 49% to 74%.

Recent studies and international experience of fastemerging economies have shown that broadband In-ternet is the next Internet evolution and will have sig-nificant impact on enhancing developmental opportu-nities and global competitiveness. The gap betweenhigh speed Internet that has become an important ICTservice and simple broadband is reducing to meet theneeds of applications like e-learning, e-governance, e-health, but its growth and the business to remain vi-able will also depend on its uses like e-commerce andincreased consumption of entertainment.

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192 N. Chhibber / Enhancing Developmental Opportunities by Promoting ICT Use

3. Technological Issues for Affordable Service

On the technology side, two major developments

have taken place. One is the rapid growth of cellular

mobile with data capability and the other is Internet

Protocol (IP) enabled technologies and services. Tra-

ditional voice only telephones in villages are no longer

considered adequate to bridge the digital gap between

the urban and rural services. Villages need to be pro-

vided Voice, data and video for Internet and other on-

line services for education, health, governance, trans-

actions and for management of agriculture resources

and development etc.

The main access paths for bridging the last mile for

ICT connectivity to Public Tele-Info Centers (PTIC),

health centers, schools, business and residences are

copper loop, cable TV network, terrestrial wireless ac-

cess, satellite communication and fiber cable. With

hardly any existing copper access in rural areas, Dig-

ital Subscriber Line (DSL) on copper is not a rele-

vant access solution in rural communications in India.

Similarly the existing cable TV services in villages do

not conform to any standards, because no standard ex-

ists, and need substantive expenditure for up-gradation

to bring the network to offer advanced ICT services.

In some states (Rajasthan and Punjab) low cost fiber

optic cables have been successfully used at competi-tive prices in providing broadband access in villages

for public kiosks under the Government funded project

named Gramdoot, (Village messenger).

Thus terrestrial wireless for far flung villages and

satellite technology for certain remote areas are the

most cost effective solutions for access technology for

rural communications. However no single technology

can be the solution for all types of terrain and various

options are available that can be improved with inno-

vative approach.

3.1. Satellite Technology

Satellite based services offer an alternative to DSL

and cable networks for providing broadband and Inter-

net services. Very Small Aperture Terminal (V-SAT)

and Direct-to-Home (DTH) technologies can deliver

last mile connections, but the cost of both V-SAT and

DTH are high due to reasons which can be overcome.

Presently the rules and regulations for the use of satel-

lite make this option very expensive due to restrictions

on use of open sky policy, laid down minimum size for

V-SAT dish and throughput, and high satellite license

and spectrum fees. All these points are however under

consideration. Even though satellite connections are

more expensive than other methods of delivery, theyprovide a viable option to rural and remote areas that

have no other real broadband options. However, for

point-to-multipoint occasional use applications where

bandwidth is required on a part-time basis, satellite

proves more cost effective. Satellite operators offer ser-

vices either direct to end- users or to resellers who pro-

vide last mile access through wireless/cable network.

The reliability of V-SAT connectivity is very high.

3.2. Terrestrial Wireless Technologies

The last ten years have witnessed spectacular growthin the usage of wireless and short message services

over cellular mobile networks. While voice and SMS

are likely to continue as major revenue earners for the

years to come, there is a lot of work going on to use

broadbandwireless technologies and delivering of high

speed data to offices, homes and the users on move.

There are a number of problems that are to be resolved,

when such broadband services are delivered over the

wireless channel, especially the access part of the net-

work. The business case for broadband wireless access

becomes attractive only when it co-exists with 2.5/3G

and co-working with wire-line/optical cable. Broad-band wireless access is considered a viable business

model when compared to building out new DSL net-

works, reworking/augmentingthe lines that exist or up-

grading the existing cable TV plant to carry two-way

traffic is expensive.

One of the attractive and cost effective wireless op-

tions that have emerged globally is IEEE 802 series

standard. Internationally the spectrum required for

these technologiesare 2.4GHz and5 GHzbands,which

are de-licensed and free for broadband usage. The low

cost of IEEE 802.11(Wi Fi) equipmentand deployment

makes this an attractive business option for operators

to provide broadband access to multiple users located

in close-by area.

Under the Department of IT, Government of India

initiated project, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),

Madras is working on rural 802.11 networks that will

solve the last 25 Km problem, as many rural communi-

ties in India are now within 25 Km of fiber. Earlier this

organization had developed corDECT technology for

providing access technology for public kiosks in vil-

lages. The corDECT based access networks have been

set up in number of villages, but work on maximum

speed of 70 Kbps only.

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Wi Max, which is based on IEEE 802.16 standard,

is expected to be another wireless replacement for awired broadband. Wi Max, which is expected to be

commercially available soon, will cover range up to

50 Km and speed of 4 Mbps in fixed point-to-point or

point-to-multipoint configuration.

CDMA 450, a CDMA 2000 technology in 450 MHz

range is likely to becomea highly efficient2.5/3 G tech-

nology in broadband functionality. Its biggest advan-

tage is larger coverage, as cell site is 5060 km radius,

resulting in considerable lower costs than a wire-line

network. The technology can theoretically serve rural

areas as a fixed wireless deployment as a DSL alterna-

tive as it offers speeds up to 2.4 Mbps. But standards

are yet to evolve, and may take about 2 years to develop

for commercial deployment.

Wireless connectivity is ideal method for outdoor

kiosks as well as for connectivity in remote located vil-

lage schools. It is important that regulatory environ-

ment should encourage competition and co-existence

of each technology. This will ensure world-class qual-

ity service at attractive prices andallow for fast Internet

and broadband growth.

4. Application of ICT for Development of Rural

Masses

Agriculture sector has a vital place in Indias eco-

nomic development. In India, agriculture output per

unit area is one of the lowest in the world. There is

a need to create awareness amongst the farmers about

managing healthy crop production, market support and

financial support through bank loans etc. ICTs for the

masses can become useful, only if people are able to

get information they need for improving the knowledge

and efficiency of their professions and approach vari-

ous agencies on-line for services like payment of bills

for utilities, taxes, admissions to hospitals, educational

institutes etc. Once people become familiar in use of

ICTs and its advantages, its use will keep on increasing

among the masses.

Literacy is another factor, which influences use of

ICT. In India, around 35 percent adult people are illit-

erate and women literacy as high as 50 percent. In rural

areas illiteracy is higher and even, out of literate people

only 10 percent people are fluent in English. Some

work is going on development of application programs

and content in local languages, but with as many as 16

different main languages in use, the progress is slow

due to enormous effort required.

Basic education is crucial to eradication of poverty

and in bringing awareness towards improving the liv-ing standards of the masses. There has been massive

expansion of schooling facilities during the last two

decades in India but schools in villages are badly man-

aged, under staffed, resulting in poor quality of edu-

cation. The worst sufferers are the girls belonging to

the urban slums and villages. There is already aware-

ness among the policy makers that modern informa-

tion and communication technologies (ICTs) can help

in increasing spread and quality of education in the ed-

ucation sector. But integrating ICT with conventional

education system to provide universal access to good

quality primary education is a big challenge.

In India roughly 200 million children are in the age

group of 614 years. One-third of them have neverbeen

to a school or are the dropouts, despite Shiksha Ab-

hiyan (Education Initiative) scheme started by the Gov-

ernment in 2003. The school drop out ratio is nearly

25 percent. The quality of rural schooling is often in-

adequate, as reflected in low level of learning achieve-

ment and high drop out rate. The ever-improving de-

velopment of Internet, fast spreading use of computer

multimedia technology, increasing availability of net-

work bandwidth has given new working concept to the

modern education.

In developingcountries notall schools even in metrosand big cities have computer networks and equipment

that are up-to-date. However more and more students

are learning on computer systems at schools (where

available), at work, at home or at computer training in-

stitutes. Distance learning by some of these traditional-

aged students as well as many older adults is becoming

popular, particularly with those who cannot afford or

have missed campus education.

To bring IT learning to every child in India, an orga-

nization named Shiksha India, a venture of Confedera-

tion of IndianIndustries (CII) andencouraged by Times

Foundation, is functioning to increase earning capacity

and to promote entrepreneurship. The course has been

introduced in schools for higher classes, and supplied

free of cost. Computer labs of 60,000 schools have

been interconnected to facilitate computer usage, Inter-

net access, and academic services. In another project,

Microsoft has signed a MoU with some of the state

governments, aimed at accelerating IT literacy in the

states. There are other similar projects like Honey

Bee network that has been created by an NGO with the

backing of the World Bank for Information for Devel-

opment Program by providing public access points in

villages, and Computer based Functional Literacy to

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teach children and adults in basic education. But until

Public Tele Info Centers having facilities forvoice, dataand video are provided in villages and computer train-

ing is introduced in rural area schools, benefits from

such projects will remain limited. At the same time,

emphasis on village public telephones should continue

so that more and more people living in rural and remote

areas have access to basic telephony service for their

use.

Distance education has so far been mainly developed

and is imparted for secondary school and university

level education. Not much developmental work has

been done for primary and upper primary school e-

learning. There is thus a need to restructure e-education

to assist schools, teachers and students for boosting

literacy in rural and sub-urban areas.

The new telecommunication techniques with con-

vergence of technologies and web based Internet must

be exploited to achieve faster access of quality pri-

mary education. Some of the areas, where ICTs can be

helpful in improving primary education in developing

countries are as given below:

Improvement in quality of instruction.

Teacher shortage. Overcrowded classes. Single

teacher can manage more students.

Going to school could be made attractive and stim-

ulating to the child.

Effective teaching aids and extra curriculum. Sub-

stitute for textbooks.

It can add art and craft skill, color and music.

Better teaching methods in place of copying and

cramming.

Standardization of teaching.

Difficult habitation pattern can be covered faster

and economically.

Thus the first job is to improve penetration of rural

telecommunications, so that at least one Public Tele-

Info Center having simultaneous voice and high speed

Internet is available in every village and the connec-

tivity extended to the nearby schools and health cen-

ters. The technology should be such that it makes

the teachers job easier, allowing them to interact with

students in a familiar manner, but also provides them

facilities that allow them to investigate new ways of

teaching and learning. Work is already in hand in the

concerned departments in the Ministry of Education to

develop a model to introduce ICTs in teaching and to

aid teachers training for its use. Indian Space Research

Organization (ISRO), a Government of India project

will be launchingIndias first Educational Communica-

tion satellite, dubbed EDUSAT in August 2004. The

satellite will carry five Ku band transponders and is thefirst of several intended to link classrooms across the

country for interactive learning.

5. Some ICT Integrated Rural Projects

There is a healthy competition in Indian states toset up its own dedicated networks to bring the benefitsof ICTs to the villagers living in these states. Ironi-cally there is hardly any project developed for improv-ing primary education in schools to attract children forincreasing literacy level.

Some of the projects being implemented for agricul-ture productivity and for e-governance are given here.

5.1. Rural ICT Centers for Management of

Agriculture Resources and Development

The basic concept of integrating ICT in agricul-ture sector is to provide more and effective informa-tion that can reduce the uncertainty farmers/producersface in decision-making and unmeasured variability inagronomic conditions. Rural ICT Centers can play asignificant role in providing such information devel-oped by agriculture professionals and agriculture re-

search institutes. This new information will simulta-neously improve farm profitability and reduce environ-ment spillover from agriculture.

A program for pest disease information as part ofits bio-informatics initiative for four major crops i.e.,paddy, coconut sugar and cotton is being developedby Indian Institute of Chemical Technology in coor-dination with Indian Farmers and Industries AllianceFederation for implementing in 22 villages in AndhraPradesh state. This part of the rural action plan by theDepartment of IT, Ministry of Communication is forthe development of village information centers calledSamadhan Kendras, meaning Problem Solving Cen-

ters in local language. The Center aims to provide anintegrated information system using database contain-ing baseline information both on health andagriculture.

A similar project interconnecting70 villages throughInternet has been initiated to serve the informationneeds of farmers in the state of Maharashtra. Theproject named Warna Wired Village is meant to pro-vide information on different crop cultivation practicesof major crops, pest and disease control, marketing in-formation, dairy and sugarcane processing. The Gov-ernment of India through National Informatics Center,Government of Maharashtra and Warna Co-operativeSociety has jointly implemented the project.

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5.2. e-Choupal by ITC

e-Choupal has been set up in India by International

Business Division of the multinational company Inter-

national Tobacco Company (ITC) to establish a more

efficient agriculture supply chain aimed at delivering

sustainable value to its customers around the world.

The model has been specifically designed to tackle the

challenges posed by fragmented farms, weak infras-

tructure and involvement of numerous intermediaries,

as it is seen in India. Choupal literally means village

assembly of farmers in local language.

Launched in the year 2000, e-Choupal reaches more

than 18,000 villages through 3000 kiosks across fivestates and adding more links is increasing the chain.

Theproblemsencounteredwhilesetting up and manag-

ing these kiosks are mainly lack of infrastructure, poor

reliability of power supply, non-availability of telecom

connectivity and bandwidth. The biggest challenge has

been of imparting skills to first-time Internet users in

remote and inaccessible villages. ITC has set a target

of covering 100,000 villages across 15 states.

e-Choupal uses ICT to cluster to all the value chain

participants, remove intermediaries and provides infor-

mation and market signals directly to farmers. Village

kiosks are managed by farmers themselves and enable

direct access to information in local language on the

weather, market prices, disseminate knowledge on sci-

entific practices and risk management, and also facili-

tate the sale of farm inputs and purchase of farm pro-

duce from the farmers doorsteps. This process greatly

reduces transaction costs, resulting in benefits to the

farmers as well as to the ITC.

5.3. Gyandoot

Gyandoot, which literally means Knowledge Mes-

senger in local language, is an e-governance program

jointly implemented and managed by public private

partnership. There are three entities involved in this en-

deavor: Gyandoot Council, the district government and

the kiosk manager. Gyandoot is a non-profit organiza-

tion, while the kiosk manager is a private individual,

mainly a local entrepreneur. The District Magistrate is

the president of the Council and the Council has a Chief

Executive Officer as its secretary. There is also a Pro-

gram Manager, who is a paid employee of the Council.

The Gyandoot Council is financially independent and

the state government plays the role of a facilitator only

and ensures timely delivery of e-governance services.

The kiosks are linked to central server located at

the district councils office through optical fiber andcopper cables using dial-up connections. Along with

e-governance, e-commerce and e-learning services are

also offered. Each service is on chargeable basis but

the charges are very nominal keeping in view the af-

fordability of the rural people. This program that has

brought computer literacy andIT awareness in each dis-

trict covers over 10 million rural people. Tribal farm-

ers are able to get better returns for their agriculture

produce by utilizing the services offered through this

program.

5.4. corDECT Technology-based Rural Network

corDECT is a wireless local loop technology, jointly

developed by a group of professionals, academia and

industry. A separate company that implements the

setting up of village kiosks based on Local Service

Provider (LSP) model handles the business part. This

model takes care of elements like Internet connectivity,

broadband growth needs like infrastructure for access,

access device and content. This program is primarily

working in the southern states of India, mainly Tamil

Nadu state.

The foremost achievement of this Group is to having

been able to bring down the cost per rural line fromthe existing US$8001000 to US$400. The corDECT

wireless local loop (WLL) model plans to provide a

telephone and Internet kiosk in every village, to be op-

erated by a local entrepreneur, whowill also make other

services available to the villagers. The kiosk will con-

sist of a corDECT wall set with its accessories includ-

ing a telephone with its meter, a multimedia personal

computer, power back up and software in Indian lan-

guages. All supplied to the entrepreneurfor the equiva-

lent of US$800 only. Since bank loans and government

assisted schemes to promote rural entrepreneurship are

available, the local operator will need about US$200

to set up a kiosk. The kiosk will provide voice and

Internet (at 35/70 Kbps) services simultaneously and

hence the break even can be reached quickly.

It is planned to divide the country into service areas

(operation units) approximately corresponding to a sub

district with a radius of 25 km. Fortunately 85 per-

cent of the sub district headquarters have optical fiber,

which can provide backbone for telecom and Internet

connectivity. The corDECT technology based Relay

Base Station (RBS) will cover an area of 25-km radius,

using DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology)

frequencies. Wide spread deployment of this technol-

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ogy is underway by BSNL (the Government controlled

incumbent company), private basic services operatorsand systems have also been deployed in other devel-

oping countries i.e. Brazil, Argentina, Fiji, Kenya,

Nigeria, Yemen, Iran, Egypt, Thailand, Nepal, Angola,

Tunisia and Madagascar.

Presently the data speeds are limited to maximum of

70 Kbps when voice is not in use and along with voice

it reduces to half, but the technology is meeting the

present service requirements. The Group is working

on developing the equipment to upgrade the kiosks to

speeds up to 256 Kbps.

6. Measures Needed

Development of ICTs has traditionally been confined

to urban areas in developing countries and rural com-

municationhas remained neglected. In the initial stage,

there is not likely to be enough demand in rural areas

to justify investment required to create a simple but

effective network covering vast rural areas. However,

the situation is changing and the tremendous demand

for rural telecommunication in India is being recog-

nized. Theagro-based industry is comingup in villages

that are going to propel rapid development and raising

living standard in rural economy.Measures that could facilitate faster growth of

telecommunication services in rural as well as urban

areas are as given below:

All government employees, teachers and health/

medical workers are trained for minimum skill re-

quired for computer operation.

The Governments should organize e-literacy cam-

paigns in rural and sub-urban areas and set up IT

training centers to impart basic IT literacy to at

least one member in each family.

Frequency bands in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrums

should be released as unlicensed frequencies for

use of wireless broadband services under IEEE

802 based standards.

Standards be laid down and regulatory issues re-

solved to make cable TV networks capable of pro-

viding broadband services.

Abolish/reduce duties, taxes; provide bandwidth

at lower prices and loans on easy financial options

to unemployed youths to encouragesetting up ICT

kiosks in villages and sub-urban areas.

Streamline the procedures and policies by cre-

ating suitable regulatory environment for use of

satellite for broadband access as V-SAT and DTH

(Direct-to-Home) services. Rules and regulationson limiting of technical specifications of maximumthroughput and minimum satellite dish size shouldbe relaxed.

A co-coordinatingcommittee under the nodal cen-tral government agency, like Ministry of Com-munications/Department of IT should be set upto prepare time-bound plans for implementingprojects of integrating ICTs in education, healthservices, agriculture information and deploy-ing e-governance. The Committee should alsobe responsible to resolve inter-departmental is-sues concerning broadband services amongst the

departments of telecommunications, IT, health,education and state administrations. Mem-bers/representatives from the concerned associa-tions of ICT industry be incorporated in the com-mittee as important members.

7. Conclusion

Inadequate infrastructure continues to remain a major constraint to rural progress. Telecommunicationhas recently been included in the category of basic in-frastructures and an important support service needed

for rapid growth and modernization of various sectorsof economy. ICTs can help in an effective way to com-bat poverty and improving the reach of education andhealthcare for rural masses.

There is a need to integrate rural infrastructure withurban infrastructure. ICT is the most effective tool toachieve this. Even simple broadband at data rates of128/256 Kbps when available in villages could makevillagers to access the same facilities that are availableto city people. While e-governance projects in variousstates are being taken up vigorously, the integration ofICT in other areas is rather slow. There is a need tolaunch a program to make at least one person in each

family computer literate for basic usage.The foremost need is to bring the quality of primaryeducation in villages to a satisfactory level. It is notpossible for the state governments or private sector toprovide simple broadband connectivity in all the vil-lages for schools, healthcare centers and communitycenters for making available services and information.The funds needed and the plan implementation is atremendous and complex task. It is therefore necessarythat the Central Government with help from interna-tional agencies like World Bank, IMF, ITU, should un-dertake this task, involving the industry and voluntaryorganizations.

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