توسعه اجتماعی در جوامع روستایی هند: اتخاذ مراکز

It is 60 years since India got freedom, but she continues to live in her villages. This paper outlines the problem faced by India in dealing with her rural poor, who constitute about 72.2% of 1027 million and live in 600,000 villages with poor or no infrastructure, and suggests ways to increase their income level. The government must redefine its policies and strategies, and deploy information and communication technologies (ICTs) innovations with application and active participation from development organizations (DOs) to achieve this. This paper highlights the status of ICTs in India and their role in social development, and discusses the case of telecentres, their benefit and overview of current initiatives with select examples. Further, it deals in detail with the sustainability of telecentres and analyses the emerging scenario using Gartner's Hype Cycle. The study concludes that many ICT initiatives in India lack a comprehensive plan in addressing the target population, struggle to sustain due to insufficient infrastructure and are too ambitious as they are not equipped with appropriate technologies in serving the rural communities. To be successful, a telecentre model needs to be built upon the principles of multi-stakeholder partnership involving the government, private organizations and DOs for combining innovation, responsiveness with stability and public participation, and needs to include massive numbers of excluded people into the information world.

Information fuels knowledge, and knowledge is widely recognized as the key resource for development. Uneven access to information and limited budgetary resources in several developing countries for creating the necessary infrastructure for increasing access to information shatters the hopes of building a Global Information Society. “India lives in its villages” is as true today as it was when the country got independence 60 years ago. The most pressing problem for the country is still how to deal with its rural poor and how to increase their income level. About 72% of 1 billion plus Indians are living in 600,000 villages with very poor or no infrastructure, pushing the rural community to further backwardness. It would be difficult for the rural development to keep pace with India's current annual population growth of 15.5 million unless the government redefines its policies and strategies, and deploys innovations in information and communication technologies (ICTs) with active participation from development organizations (DOs). The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the distribution of the Indian population; status of ICTs in India and their role in social development; the case of telecentres and India's select rural community telecentres; their sustainability and analysis of the emerging scenario using Gartner's Hype Cycle.

India cannot truly take advantage of its growing strength in the field of ICTs without servicing its own domestic needs first, particularly those in rural areas. India's advantages lie in its population density, potential size of its network, economies of scale, understanding of rural poor needs, and its cultural and geographic diversity. Many ICT initiatives in India lack comprehensive plan in addressing the target population; struggle to sustain due to insufficient infrastructure, inadequate participation by the government and industry; and are too ambitious without being equipped with appropriate technologies for serving the rural communities. Grassroots interventions seldom demonstrate local-specific adaptation of ICTs. The local-specific extremes demand fabrication of hardware such as Intel-powered Community PC platforms to be deployed in rural kiosks (http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20060329corp.htm), and software devices such as making available local language software tools and fonts in the public domain through the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, initially in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu languages under Language Technology Mission (C-DAC, 2006), according to geophysical environments and requirement of extraordinary mechanisms for citizens with different levels of educational attainment, informational capacity, initiation, age groups, gender, etc. To be successful, a telecentre model needs to be built upon the principles of mutli-stakeholder partnership involving the government, private organizations and DOs for combining innovation, responsiveness with stability, public participation and to include massive numbers of excluded people into the information world. Concepts like Mission 2007 in India would contribute to the use of ICT movement and its target by mobilizing a national strategically designed campaign to persuade urban and rural people alike about the value of knowledge, information and communication and the role people at grassroots can play in contributing to information databases. The world economy is moving with increasing speed and India cannot afford to leave most of its population disconnected from the high-speed global knowledge network.