Saksham

I’ve posted here in the past about the way the Internet looks from South India. But that’s mainly been from the centres of Chennai, Coimbatore and Kottayam, which are fast catching up to Bangalore and Hyderabad,as hubs of high-tech. There is another, older India and the most interesting IT news out of India this weekend is how a rural portal may soon reach deep into India’s villages, — where almost 70 per cent of India lives — largely untouched by the IT and outsourcing booms.

Saksham, a public-private initiative is aimed at creating a self-sustaining kiosk modelA kiosk in this scheme is much more than merely a cyber cafe. to take technology to the villages. Microsoft is developing a rural portal to bridge the rural-urban divide.

Mobile Banking

Think about banking. Mobile wireless ATMs-developed by IIIT Bangalore is one such solution. It costs a bank over a million rupees to set up a one man branch in rural India, add in the huge running cost and it is unviable. But a mobile ATM operator invests the same amount – and the infrastructure could be used for many villages and many banks. Farmers in a remote village in Honavar, 600 km away from Bangalore, are using ATM machines to open a bank account. An ATM machine loaded on a van winds its way through the dusty roads of five villages offering 22,000-odd farmers perhaps their first experience with a bank – they can open an account, request for a loan and be able to deposit as well as withdraw cash at will in the near future. The ATM machine is linked wirelessly through Reliance Infocomm’s network to the backend server of the participating bank, which includes Syndicate Bank and State Bank of India. The software on the ATM is simple – in regional languages and easy to use.

Planning a Self-Sustaining Kiosk Model

Microsoft undertook a study of over 350 kiosks, involving 4,000 users in six states to understand user habits. The study showed that: kiosks which only offered e-governance services (like vital statistics registration, land records etc) were unable to sustain themselves very long. The reason was simple: while 70 per cent of the revenues when the kiosk was launched came from e-governance, in six months it dropped to 20%. So there was need for offering more comprehensive services in the kiosk for farmers to come in. Microsoft hopes to set up over 50,000 broadband connected kiosks across villages covering over 50 per cent of the rural population in the next three years under the “Saksham” scheme. (Saksham in Sankrit means self-reliant). One group aims to set up a kiosk within 500 metres of everyone’s home.

Rugged Equipment

What rural India needs is not cheap PCs, but PCs which work in that setting. Recognizing that Intel has developed a rugged chassis to withstand dusty and extreme temperatures. It has also integrated a UPS as well as an ACDC converter in the machine so that it can work on a car battery for six to eight hours, to tackle the lack of electricity in many villages.

Microsoft’s Plans

“As India marches into the knowledge economy, it is imperative that rural India, where 70 per cent of our population resides, be exposed to the benefits of IT. So far IT has been viewed as a means for social development for this segment, but we believe that it can also serve as a driver for economic growth,” says Tarun Malik, lead, Rural Computing, Microsoft India.

In line with the needs of the rural communities, the kiosks will offer a range of relevant content and services such as:

* Government to citizen services: land records and birth & death certificates
* Health services: direct referrals to hospitals, online appointment requests, online consultation requests
* Agriculture services: vet consultancy services, agri-newspaper, online consultation
* Commercial services: insurance, digital photography, astrology, matrimonial servicesThis is rural India, after all.
* Communication services: chat, online telephony & e-mail
* Entertainment content & services: web browsing, games, music & moviesEducational content is being developed online for children in local languages. The kiosks come with a printer and software for desktop publishing for marriage or invitation cards or even a CV. And as PCs are loaded with Windows Media Player – many local kiosks owners have converted themselves into mini movie halls – offering movie shows at a nominal Rs 2-3 a show.
* Desktop publishing: typing, printing and designing
* Education content and services: Computer education, language literacy

This is a different web world from that which Slaw lives in – but it’s an important one.