[wsfii-discuss] the cooperative way for India?

[Arun Mehta]

Leading up to the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures,
wsfii.org, in Dharamsala, international participants may be interested
in understanding the rural connectivity situation in India.

The article below is right, when it says that mostly so far, all we
have had is pilot projects, and lots of conferences. The government is
indeed trying to set up 100,000 telecenters, but so far, two years
after Mission 2007 was launched, there is little evidence of anything
on the ground. At the London wsfii, I predicted, hoping to be proved
wrong, that not much would have been achieved by the government bythe
time of the 2006 wsfii. Actually, a lot less has been achieved, than I
expected.

As regards viability, why do we forget Metcalfe's law: the value of a
network is proportional to the square of its size? In other words,
viability will improve dramatically if we network all 600,000 instead
of just one-sixth: if 6 villages share a telecenter, a lot of the
business will be lost: all the communications between the 6! People
surely communicate with neighboring villages a lot more than they do
with people far away. The old and the disabled will not be able to use
a telecenter, unless it is in their own village.

The Dharamsala WSFII could not be happening at a more opportune time,
to point out another way. No longer do we need large telcos to
condescend to provide connectivity to villages. People can do it
themselves, as the airjaldi network in Dharamsala and others around
the world so ably demonstrate.
Arun

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1648695.cms
Rural connect: The cooperative way
MOHAN MISHRA

On the face of it, the growing Naxalite menace may be treated as a law
and order problem. But the root cause of the issue, as articulated by
Dr MS Swaminathan, the father of Green Revolution, is: "Ignore
farmers, see Red spread". Naxalism, along with farmers' suicides, are
only the visible symptoms of a deeper disease: the worsening plight of
agriculture dependent population and widening urban-rural disparities.

To see how stark these disparities are, just take a look at the
teledensity figures. Despite the euphoria over recent telecom growth,
rural teledensity remains a measly 2% compared to 31% in urban areas.
The teledensity growth in the country has been led by higher urban
volumes while large parts of rural India still remain unconnected.

Rural development is an urgent need and towards that goal, connect-ing
the villages is the first step. There has also been a growing interest
from all quarters including numerous corporates, in solving the
problems of rural India using Information and Communication Technology
(ICT). While there have been a slew of initiatives and announcements,
substantive results have been far and few.

One reason is that many tend to treat the matter as primarily a
technology issue. The solutions offered would, therefore, have been
around innovation at the product level and range from the earlier
Simputers to the recent $100 laptop.

These are only some options to the challenge of connecting villages.
Very few have attempted to put together an integrated solution to
overcome the challenge of connecting rural India. Second,
sustainability remains a major stumbling block in the game of rolling
out rural kiosks.

No one has still found a satisfactory answer to the issue. Says Dr MS
Swaminathan, whose MSSRF village kiosks are an industry forerunner:
"Economic sustainability may not happen in immediate terms, but it is
more a question of social sustainability."

Pankaj Baveja, founder of Project Param, and a pioneer in rural
computing, endorses these views, but adds: "That does not mean that
solutions to sustainability are not possible. Issues are not so much
to do with choices in technology and connectivity.

It is more to do with ownership-operations model and with the nuances
in implementation." Third, with the trend of showcasing, only
conferences and seminars have been proliferating while there hasn't
been substantive work on field.

 For substantive achievements in connecting rural India, a way forward
may be the cooperative way. A shining example of marriage of
technology with cooperative linkages for real grassroots
transformation is Amul.

Its manufacturing facilities are a point of envy for even the western
world, and so are its IT-enabled logistics. In the words of the Amul
CEO BM Vyas: "Amul is not a food company. It is an IT company in the
food business". That is true rural empowerment using ICT.

Cooperatives have been deeply entwined with the lives of rural people,
fostering economic activity with linkages extending right up to the
grassroots level. They have been playing an important role in rural
development.

Not many may be aware that in the country there are over 5 lakh
cooperative societies with membership exceeding 22 crore. But more
important, the principles of equity along with economic growth are
embodied in the basic co-operative structures, and hence the
co-operative way is the natural way for rural development -- and for
reducing disparities.

Recognising the need for rural development, the government is doing
its bit by launching a bold initiative of setting up 100,000 Common
Service Centres by 2007. Pankaj Baveja, says: "The needs in the
vil-lages are so high that this programme is bound to deliver positive
re-sults. So, progress it must in its implementation."

The task of rural development requires a concerted cooperative effort
and participation from all quarters. Along with the government and the
co-operative sector, private industry needs to come forward to
contribute substantively towards rural transformation, taking things
beyond limited CSR activities.

The visionaries and captains in the industry need to look at rural
India -- not as mere markets -- but as investments. And this they need
to do in their enlightened self interest. That may just be the key to
sustain-able rural transformation.