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.