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.