Turning the Distress Into a Win-Win Opportunity

We are witnessing a rise in the instances of the farmers commiting suicide throughout the country in general and particularly in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. If we ponder on this issue one perspective emerges very strongly that today the reason behind the distress of the farmers are that there is increasing chasm in the aspirations and the ground realities in the rural area. While the ruralites are exposed to the changing lifestyles of an ordinary Indian, conveyed to them through the exposure to media like Tlevision channels, print media as well as through their urban brethren who are apparently being blessed by all the goodies of life as never seen before, creating the urge to posses the same but on the other hand the lack of legitimate means to acheive them is resulting in the growing frustration in the rural part. Here the economic scenario is such that it is difficult to meet both the ends with the agriculture income and to make the situation worse there is the pressure from younger genration due to growing aspirations resulting in increase in the number of heads of families commiting suicides in the villages. After an indepth analysis of the agriculture sector it is apparent thet the agricuture sector is having the following generic problems
1. Unremunerative croping practice
2. Increasing input cost due to resistance developed in the pest as a result of excessive use of pesticide
3. Lack of technical assistance in case of change in cropping pattern
4. Lack of marketing led inputs for crop planning
5. Absence of marketing support except for a few crop
6. High cost of Inputs including finance
7. Absence of risk cover in case of crop failure
8. Continuous explotation due to lack of transparency and breakdown of institutional frame work established to support the farmers
9. Increasing number of ruralites are unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Therefore the it is imperative to establish an institutional framework to cater to the aforesaid needs of the farming community which shall provide their value added services to the farmers on commercial terms. As we know that the basis of marketing starts from the identification of need thus it is a boon in disguise for the marketers having an opportunity to address to a large number of unaddressed needs to make a suitable entry strategy. Thankfully with the advent of Information and communication Technology today it is possible to develop the linkages which provides services to the farmers in increasing their income. Leveraging the ICT if a network along with neccessary contents, deliverables, service providers, vendors and physical infrastructure is developed in an organized manner, which should be packaged in a business model, there is a possiblity of another wave of developement in the rural India as we have witnessed an IT led Sunami effect in urban India in last one and a half decades. The network of IT kiosk with web based portal of following service providers can be a great stepping stone for the farmers moreover it shall new vista of business opportunies in the rural Area

internet banking for the farmers and web based financial consultancy services including loaning, insurances and investments
Tailor made Agricutlure consultancy through net for technical support in changing the croping pattern
Leveraging internet protal to provide low cost high quality agri input throug ebusiness model
Bridging the gap between producers and the bulk buyers through web based network for online procurement, contract farming, commodity exchanges, market driven production
Creating a web based classified database (yellow pages) for farmers and rural businessmen.
Creating a network of physical service providers in form of IT enabled procurement centres, transportation network, Warehouses accesible at the village level. The beauty of this network depends upon sharing of resources and optimizing the capacities and developing the entreprenuership at the village level to complete the eco system.
Single Window service delivery system of government at the village level

To achieve the aforsaid there is a need of integration of the following element to complete the ecosystem

Internet connectivity at the village level
Network of entreprenuership driven ICT enable kiosks at the village level
Willingness of the stakeholders like Banks, Insurance Companies, Government, Agri Input providers, Agriculture Consultancy providers, Procurers of the Commodities, Commidity exchange to work in tandem and be a part of the protal
Technology service providers to run the portal and work as the driving force
Small Entreprenuers to be a part of ecosystem to complete the value chain.
Government with a clear vision and high level of commitment to work as the facilitator of this concept.
The good news is that various initiatives in the country have already started in this direction with different components of the aforesaid system working in their domain independently like the Gramdoot model in Wardha, ITC eChoupal, KVK Baramati, RMAG ICICI Bank, Basix etc. so the need of the hour is that there shall be a collborative approach of all such elements and join together to form a perfect ecosystem which shall be reulting another wave of developement in the country and this time it will have a larger impact and result in social harmony.

Rural Internet Connectivity: A New Perspective

ICT is certainly a very potent tool to transform the rural economy. There is a very strong need for the penetration of ICT in the rural sector as it will generate tremendous employement for the rural youth in the area of IT and ITES sector like Busness Process Outsourcing, Data Processin, software developement and services, Internet content developement apart from the fact that the usage of ICT shall facilitate the economic developement by increasing the business, better marketability, opening newer bisness avenues, Improvement in productivity, cutting down the cost of transaction, bringing speed in the business process, transparency and empowerment.
There are numerous ways through which one can realize the power of ICT for rural upliftment but the First and Foremost thing is the connectivity. It is imperative that the government as a part of it's social obligation of bringing infrastructure developement shall immediately ensure the availability of affordable broadband connectivity in each and every village of the country. The urgency of this need is being felt at the upper echeleon of some quarter of the government who are pushing this movement but still we are not able to see the desired results.
We are witnessing the discussions and deliberations on this regard at different forums since quite some time, over the form of the technology to be used viz Cordect, Wimax, 3G etc.
The government is trying to attract operators at various levels to create the infrastructure for last mile connectivity in the rural area. With the mandate from Ministry of Information technology various state governments have initiated the project of establishing State Wide Area Network (SWAN) using the relatively low cost technology in private public Partnership. Setting up of SWAN is a welcome move but the government should take the following care that
It should be implementaed in a time bound manner with utmost urgency
Government should ensure that not a single village should be left uncovered
Technology like WIMAX and 3G makes last mile connectivity possible but initial revenue generated from selling the connectivity at the village may not bring immidiate financial viablity so the governemnt should find a wayout to promote the establishment of socially important infrastructure at the village level
Connectivity shaould be given priority over populist plans like building of toilets, poverty alleviation programme, loan waiver, interest waiver etc... as it will initiate the structural change in the rural sector
The Connectivity should be made available at affordable prices and it should be treated as an essantial commodity.

With the aforesaid priorities the government should ensure that the villagers get acess to broad band within their reach. It is a high time that the connectivity is made available in the villages because the Goverment of India is already working on Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme with an objective of establishing CSCs in 100000 villages across the country in Partnership with the private players, so with so many private players in sight we shall be seeing a great leap in content and application developement for rural sector which shall be a stepping stone in bridging the digital divide in Urban and rural India. Apart from CSCs we are also witnessing the increasing usage of ICT in Procurement of commodities from the farmer, internet banking, commodity exhange (Future exchange as well as the comming up of spot exchanges), Telemedicine, Online trading, BPO, ebusiness, eGovernance, distance education through net, and all the aforesaid activities have tremendous potential in the rural economy and we can witness a new wave in growth kickstarted by rural connectivity. So today the slogan given by Late Dewang Mehta ROTI, KAPDA, MAKAN aur CONNECTIVITY seems to be pertinent.

Need for Village IT Kiosks for G2C Deliverables

Establishment of rural IT kiosks is definately a great boon for the villagers as it has potential to change the way an ordinary villager does the business. The most important role of IT kiosk is, to become an interface between Government and Citizen (G2C) wherein the villagers need not go to the government offices situated at far flung places, rather they can get their job done in their village. We are aware that farmers have to be depenndent on the government for a large number of issues like

• Land related issues
• education and healthcare
• Various beneficiary schemes
• Certificateion of their status
• Complaints and disputes
• Licences, permits and NOCs
• Law and Order
• Irrigation and electricity etc.

The dependency on government is more in the rural area as compared to the urban area is because in urban area most of the services are provided by the private entreprises due to attractive business potentials, whereas in the rural area, due to poor purchasing power and inadequate economic activities there is absence of private entreprises therefore the dependence of an ordinary citizen is mostly on the government for all the issues be it education, banking, transportation, communication, healthcare, employement, basic infrastructure etc. So for all the aforesaid puposes there are several departments having been established to cater to various needs of rural citizen. Thses departments are located at different places depending on the nature of tasks and a huge government machinery is deployed upto the village level to serve the rural folks. Despite of the availability of a mamoth government machinery in the name of serving the ordinary citizen we all know the fate of an ordinary citizen. Even after 60 years of independence we find that our villages are still undeveloped and there is an ever increasing gap in the developement of urban and rural India as a matter of fact the graph of developement for rural and urban India is moving in the opposite direction for most parts of the country. Newer generations of the farmers are finding it uninteresting to remain in the farming and are migrating to cities increasing the slums. Apart from poor future prospects they spend a large portion of time in the labrinth of governement machinery to get their small things done. Some of the problems can be understood by the following examples

If a farmer needs loan (as he often needs due to high risk in Farming and inadequate returns) he shall either opt for taking loans from the money lenders at a very high interest rate very often ending up in becoming a landless laboures or go to bank. He has to get his land record documents, income certificate, photographs, etc. Certain documents are required from the government machinery which are sometime a herculean task and then making innumerable rounds to bank and mid it he has to spend a lot of time and money in obtaining all these inputs teherfore the cost of loan is very high which is a detering factor.

If a student has to go for admission in higher education he has to obtain cast certificate, domicile certificates from the government and to get these certificates he has to prove his basis of getting the certificates for which he has to make several rounds of different authorities, like TC/school leaving certificate of his father, cerfificates from patwari, residence proof etc. which has to be collected from different authority and such things are issued from taluka office which some times are situated as far as 15-20 Km.

There are several beneficiary schemes of various departments like agriculture, animal husbandry, social welfare etc. on which government spends a huge amount of money but an ordinary farmer newer get to know about it, only politically connected people get the benefits. Availing such beneficiary schemes are also very difficult as the farmers has to produce a number of documents obtained from various departments. Thus a major part of their time is spent on running from pillar to post increasing to the frustration.

Fortunately Information and Communication Technology provides the solution for all such problems where with the help of Village level ICT Kiosks can work as the citizen facilitation center for all the government department by integrating there front end into a single window service facilitation centers. This can save a lot of time, money and from harrasment to the farmers who can then focus more time in it's core area of improving his farming income and if he is saved from such harrasments he will certainly develop a new approach towards development with a positive frame of mind. Even ICT can help the farmers in knowing the newer cropping pattern and it's technology and getting the market linkages to get a better price of his produce

The good news is that in last 5-6 years various initiatives has been taken by various Government authorities like setting up Taluka level facilitation centre by revenue department in the state of Maharashtra called Setu, Village level Gramdoot Network in Wardha district, Sarita project by IGR in Maharashtara etc. But the need of the hour is to establish village level IT kiosk which shall be interface for all the government departments and the entities having the objectives of providing services in the rural area rather than seperate initiative by different departments at different level. Goverment of India taking note from some of the aforesaid initiative have come up with a mandate of 100000 CSC across the country which is an initiative must be waited and watched far as this has a potential to transform the rural scenario if implemented in it's true spirit.

ICT Application in Banking: Turn Around in the Rural Economy

Today we are amazed to see how IT has changed the life of a normal Urban Indian. We see the applications of IT in banking, insurance, ticketing (Air, rail, buses etc) and find how our life has become easier by online banking, e-ticketing, e-filing of taxes. Compare the banking 10-15 years back when it was a full time task to do the day to day banking. It is the IT which has made banking industry grow at such a fast pace. Leveraging technology, the new age bankers have changed the skyline of consumer finance sector, which has led to a tremendous growth in the key sectors of economy like automobiles, consumer durables, housing, banking and financial sectors along with the IT and ITES. Thus we are experiencing the snowballing effect of growth in Information Technology in the Indian economy. This is one side of the story because all these action is seen in the Urban part of the country whereas the rural sector is still grappling with the age old system. If we can replicate the similar action in the rural sector we can see India emerging as an economic super power in a very short term. In this article I shall dvelve as to how can rural India be benefited if the banking sector break the ice to become the growth engine of agrarian eonomy.

These days we are witnessing a large number of farmers committing suicides which is becoming serious proposition day by day, such that the government is puzzled to find out a lasting solution of this menace. Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh toured the districts of Vidarbha to address to this problem, thereafter a package was announced for the benefit of farmers but the problem has not yet mitigated rather the rate of suicides are increased thereafter.

Due to our experience of working in the rural area we have realized that the reason for farmers suicide is due to the fact that in rural area people are loosing the hope for a bright future due to absence of any system which address to their need of economic upliftment, on a perpetuel basis. We find that governemnts occassionally announce some ineterst waiver, loan -waiver kind of sops but the real need is to help them earn in a dignified way which is still a problem due to absence of access to banking, finance, market linkages, transportation service and consultancy and technical support to be in tune with the time whereas due to access to the media the aspirations of rural folks are raising equally as of their urban brethern.

We find that ICT is a ray of hope which applied thought fully and whole heartedly can adress to a large number of farmers problems. I shall be presenting a series of ICT application which if clubbed with the innovative business acumen shall be a potent tool which has the power to change the scenario of rural India as we have witnessed in urban India in last couple of decades. Let us take the banking first and foremost.

We know that it has been the policy of the government to treat rural lending a priority sector and government spends a huge amount of taxpayers money to make agriculture lending cheaper. Even though if we make an assessment of how much the farmers are benefited by this we find it to be dismal. The question is how much cost a farmer has to bear to get a loan first an foremost the bank has to be accessible to the farmers, but it is also true that opening a branch is not feasible in the rural area. Second problem is that in order to complete the documentation and formalities the farmers have to spend a lot of amount as they have to spend a handsome amount on getting the land record documents, photographs, photocopies and inumerable rounds to different places to get their compete set of documents prepared. Thus after spending these amounts which is uniform to all the farmers some farmers have to shell out extra amount to the middlemen who are involved to get the loan to these people. Therefore whatever the interest rates shall be but the cost of getting the loan from the nationalized banks to the farmers is very high and is so tedious that the farmer prefers to take it from high cost sources in form of input credit or money lender which is also very dangerous for his financial future.

The solution for this menace is to make farm loan more accesible and trouble free by utilizing rural IT kiosks as the facilitators to the farmers in getting farm loans. These IT kiosks can do the following task to facilitate the banking

• Prospecting the farmers about the Farm loan
• Counselling for various lending options and their procedures
• Helping the farmers in documentation
• Photography, Photocopying and assisatnce in the compliances

Thus the farmers can get the services similar to what we get in cities by the DSAs of banks and telecom companies who get the serces at their door step. We must be clear that it is the the accessiblity and the convinience which plays an important role in the growth of any service. The same phenomena has led to growth in Housing, automobile consumer durables, credit cat and personal finance growth.

We have some models of village level IT kiosks in the country which can be tried by the nationalized banks for the benefit of farmers. Onne such example is Gramdoot model in Wardha district of maharashtra where there are more than 70 Kiosks upto the village level having basic IT infrastructure with a dedicated person manning the kiosk on the full time basis. These kiosks are offering various eGovernance services and the most important is the land record documents which are required in getting the crop loan. Thus if banks wishes to utilize the services of this existing network bank need not do any capital investment in getting nearer to the farmers the farmers can get complete couselling from such centers and get the documentation services and go to the branch fully prepared and thereon the banks can do the due diligence before sanctioning the loans. This kind of arrangement shall be a low cost and high effect revolution in the rural banking. Bank can further utilize such kiosks for all kind of lending as well as variuos other IT enabled services off-corse by safeguarding it's interests.

Here lies a solution for our policy makers to address to the problem of lack of developement in the rural India and make Information technology an engine for growth of rural economy. With the increase in banking and public funding in the farming economy there will be more technical and manegiral skills forthcoming which shall lead to growth in the allied sectors like transportaion, primary processing, warehousing, insurance, post and pre harvesting technologies etc. which means more per capita income in the rural area more spending, better facilities, reverse brain train, more entreprenuership and decentralization of economic growth resulting in an overall growth of the economy.

Introduction to Gramdoot: Need of the Hour

One of the finest examples of application of Information and Communication Technology and creative entreprenuership is Gramdoot running in Wardha District of Maharashtra since 2002. This concept was developed by an IT company called NSP futuretech Pvt. Ltd. Nagpur and district administration of Wardha. The company created the business model wherein with the help of village level entreprenuers a network of IT kiosks is established upto the village level through out the district. More Than 70 district, Taluka and village level centers were created by the investment of the entreprenuers themselves.

The business model focused on serving the villagers by offering various need based services at an affordable price to the villagers. To start with Gramdoot offers the eGovernance services like Providing computerized land record documents, community certificates etc. This network could be utilized by all those business interest groups who are looking forward to do the business at village level. This model of eGovernance has recieved wide acclaims from the Government establishments. Gramdoot Has recieved Bronze icon for excellence in service delivery under National eGovernence Awards 2006. It is however pertienet to mention that the project has not recieved any kind of Government Grant and has established itself as a proof of concept that how such kind of IT kiosk can be an ideal delivery platform for eGov. services at the village level.

The governemnt of India has announced the Common Service Center (CSC) scheme under national eGovernance Plan (NeGP) with a budget of aroud 5000 crores with an objective of establishing 100000 village level CSCs throughout the country. The model of CSC is almost similar to the Gramdoot model which is running since more than 4 years. Here the Govt. understands the significance of village level IT kiosks and acknowledge that there is a need for revenue support to run the CSCs in the initial phases to make it self sustainable in the long run, the gesture which is appreciated by the Gramdoot network as they have managed to sustain for so long with a lot of hardships.

It is also worthwhile to mention that the gramdoot intiated by a group of small entreprenuers with a great vision and commitment that it could survive at times when such kind of phenomena did not exists and there was cynicism in the government establishment on practicability of such ideas. Now with Government support forthcoming the Gramdoot model can be empowered to play a proactive role in tranforming the employement opportunities in the rural India.