Bridging the digital divide

Which is not a surprise really, given India’s vast pool of doctors and engineers across the globe. The question to ask is this: where is this pool coming from? It is coming from boys like Rupesh, a class seventh student living in Khabra Khurd village, about 85 km north of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, a picture of remoteness.

Khabra Khurd is like the thousands of ordinary, nondescript villages which dot the country’s landscape.
The nearest uptown area is 15 km away, connected by a single lane road dominated by over-crowded buses. Power supply is available for 10 to 12 hours a day and the only middle school in the village has 147 students, on its roll, in addition to two teachers.

If one is on leave, then the onerous responsibilities of running the school rests with the other. However, where this village scores over its peers is that it has a Common Service Center (CSC) – an E-governance initiative by government of India, based on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. The twin aim of this innovative scheme is to empower rural India with information at door step and bridge the steadily-widening digital divide between rural and urban India.

A basic CSC has a computer, connected to internet by a Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) phone, printer and a scanner. Basic computing courses are also taught at these centres, like the one in Khabra Khurd.
Rupesh is the youngest among those learning the basics of computing. Unlike his urban peers, Rupesh may not be aware of social networking site Facebook and does not have an email ID, but he is good at Microsoft Excel sheet and well versed with its functions.

The two-month course has come as a morale booster for him and his family. “We will let him study till he wants. With the grace of Almighty, he will become an engineer one day,” says his father Bhupesh Chowdhary, who owns a small agriculture goods shop in the local market.

Slowly but steadily, the CSCs are empowering the rural populace by connecting them to the outside world. Besides, one can deposit utility bills (water, electricity and telephone) and can access and get a authorised copy of a land records at any centre.

Ticket booking facilities are also available, even though it is rarely used by villagers. Mobile recharge is one of the largest facilities being used by the locals and a continuing source of income for the owners.

“Earlier we had to travel 15 km to pay electricity bills and it used to be a 5 to 6 hours exercise for us. At times, we were asked to return because of some technical problems or power cuts at the station, ” says Bhavar Lal, a teacher.

Now, paying bill is a hassle free exercise in the five adjoining villages which have between them a few hundred electricity connections. The villagers come as per their convenience to deposit the bills, predicts Lal, adding: “Things are changing in these areas.’’

The government has also made available land records at CSCs, a huge relief to the villagers. On payment of Rs 20, details of land records are available at the CSCs. The normal practice has been to go to the district headquarters to source land records after the ubiquitous greasing of palms.

But it takes time to change. Despite the earnestness, the service centres are not working as effectively, as they are supposed to be. Land records available on-line are five years old and therefore useless. The government is yet to update it. Part of the failure is due to the lack of coordination at district, state and Central government level.

The officials believe, however, that gradually these problems would be solved. Acceptability of documents are one of the major problems CSCs are facing. During the initial days, the state electricity board was not updating the bills deposited at the CSCs, which lead to chaos among the villagers.

“The issue was hampering the growth and acceptance of CSCs among the common man. Finally, we had to call a meeting between government officials and electricity board to sort it out,” points out Ravin Kewaliya, district manager at Zoop Developers.

He is quick to add, however, that things are improving. Zoop presides over development and running of service centers across India. Interestingly all the service centers in Rajasthan are allocated to women, based on their educational qualification. It is the only state which has earmarked this scheme for women, thanks to former chief minister Vasundhara Raje.

For the entrepreneurs, it has also become a good source of earning. To own a CSC, an investment of Rs 11,000 besides space and machines is required.

The average monthly earning of a CSC is Rs 2000-5000, most of it coming from mobile phone recharges. Some owners have found creative ways of livelihood as well. At a CSC at Agodai, 47 km from Jodhpur, Dinesh Kumar (51) has invented a novel way to earn money: He downloads music from internet and sells it to the villagers on CDs and memory card.

“For a 2GB music download, we charge Rs 25. The demand is huge as new songs are released every week. Music downloads are generating good revenue for us,’’ Dinesh adds.

The owner of the CSC is his daughter Sumitra Sharma (26), but is actually run by her father and two younger brothers. Most downloads are happening on memory cards, thanks to the availability of cost effective multimedia phones with a 2GB memory card. Videos, too, are expected to be another money spinner. Another bottleneck for the CSC owners is they are yet to get any government commission struggling, as per rules. For the last six months, they are yet to get any commission on bill payments.

Before CSC, the government had started the Computer Information Center (CIC) in the north east with 100 per cent investment from the government. Similarly, the National Informatics Center (NIC) has been started by Sugam. It has very little penetration, so the CSC is by far the biggest e-Governance initiative of the government and first of PPP model.

Given the size of India and the slow pace of development, CSCs have a long way to go to bridge the digital divide. But it has begun to take little baby steps even in India’s boondocks.

According to officials, it will soon act as a nodal agency for e-health and e-education. The government is also working on proposals to add financial muscle to the CSCs. Better late than never. With results already coming in, the villagers are just waiting for the right time to make full benefit of the government schemes. Now the ball is in the government’s court.