Articles
Information & Communication Technologies For Development of Rural Areas
Dt: 23/9/22
Information & Communication Technologies
For Development of Rural Areas
Dr T H Chowdary*
Even after 75 years of independent, India’s rural population is about 65% or 85 cr. This is more than twice the whole of India’s population in 1951. The area of rural India has not increased. It therefore follows that the availability of land per capita which is the source of income in rural areas has shrunk seriously. This is the reason for rural poverty . 75% of the rural population is getting food items free under the Public Distribution System (PDS). This is the largest population which is taken care of by any government in the world to help the poor. Literacy is also lower among the rural population . How can ICTs help the rural population is a matter for serious consideration.
2. Information is power. How do people communicate to get the information ? Telecoms -telephony, TV/ video , graphics…. help to get information. The greatest step in making affordable tele-communication even to the poor was taken by Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao who in 1992 allowed private companies to introduce cellular mobile radio telephony in the country on a competitive and regulated basis. The process of the cellular radio telephony spreading all over the country in an affordable manner was launched by Prime Minister, Sri Atal Behari Vajpai through the National Telecom Policy 1999 (NTP ’99) . The licensing and regulatory regime facilitated the rapid extension of mobile radio telephony all over the country. Competition brought improved technologies designated by successive generations as 2G, 4G, 5G…. In 1994 when the first NTP was promulgated an year’s telephone service costed Rs. 10,000
which was equivalent to or 100% of the then annual per capita income . Today the average annual mobile telephone revenue is less than Rs. 2,400 which is 1.7% of the per capital income of Rs. 1.40,000 . This is the reason why telephony of the latest generation is available even in the rural areas for the poor. Almost all families have a mobile telephone, some of them smart ones.
3. The Carona pandemic brought out how rural India has benefitted through affordable ICTs in the form of 3G and 4G mobile telephony. People are able to work from home . If this is intensively practised, rural young need not migrate to cities . Lessons were delivered by teachers from their homes wherever they are, to children in their homes. Even as young as eight -year olds could take the lessons in their homes.
4. ICTs have helped all types of transactions even by the rural people. They are able to transfer money without going to any bank and get money into their bank accounts ; also over the telecom network. Medical consultation is now available over the telecom network . Merchandise is be ordered over telephones and received in the homes.
5. In short, people ae communicating for every type of work . They need to travel only for pleasure. In the mid 1960s the Chairman of the world famous American Telegraph & Telephone Corporation AT&T envisaged that persons need not be given names but only telephone numbers. If a number is called and if there is no answer it means the person is dead. Different types of communications on earth as well as satellite based are enabling every person to communicate with any other person on the globe at any time
6. Imagine a village where fifty ICT graduates work for IT companies; each getting Rs. 500,000 per year. The village economy gets Rs. 2,50,00,000. It can then afford all the amenities and pleasures that towns and cities have – good roads, restaurants, excellent schools and library . Today about 50 lakh I.T professionals are working in India’s cities , for US and European multinational corporations and their number is increasing. If even a fraction in their growing numbers work from villages over the 5G/ 6G telecom networks, rural India will prosper immensely.
7. Just as air and water are essential for life and so should not be auctioned or priced highly to generate revenues for government, radio-spectrum is essential for digital India, for information society in which people communicate for work and commute for pleasure should not be auctioned and so priced highly to make it less affordable. Radio spectrum is inexhaustible; it can be regenerated and like air and water should be for use by all at least cost.
8. In the program of aathma nirbhar bharat we are going to have indigenously developed technologies and devices so that they are available to the relatively poor rural people thus enabling the reduction of inequalities between urban and rural people in every aspect of life and endeavour. (774 words)
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