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Saturday, Jul 09, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Rural knowledge revolution: a road map

M.S. Swaminathan

Technology helps to achieve a paradigm shift from unskilled to skilled work and thereby move large numbers of the rural poor from the primary to the secondary and tertiary sectors of economic activity.

THE COUNTRY is at long last becoming sensitive to the serious consequences of the growing rural-urban divide in terms of investment, infrastructure and opportunities for income and employment. The rural-urban divide also leads to an expanding rich-poor divide. Since crop and animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry, and agro-processing are the main sources of rural livelihoods, the current agrarian crisis is adding to the problems of hunger, poverty, and unemployment. According to the Union Planning Commission, we are off-track in achieving most of the UN Millennium Development Goals. No wonder, the President of India has been calling for an accelerated provision of urban amenities in rural areas (PURA). The Prime Minister has also proposed a massive Bharat Nirman programme. A major cause for the growing rich-poor divide both between and within nations is unequal access to modern technology. Technology helps to achieve a paradigm shift from unskilled to skilled work and thereby move large numbers of the rural poor from the primary to the secondary and tertiary sectors of economic activity. If technology has been a major factor in promoting economic and social divides in the past, the challenge now lies in enlisting technology as an ally in the movement for economic, gender, and social equity.

Keeping the above in view, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has been working during the last 15 years on the skill and knowledge empowerment of the rural poor based on a pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-woman orientation to technology development and dissemination. Further, the aim has been to substitute jobless economic growth with job-led growth. This is particularly essential in the present day context when unemployment and under-employment are taking a heavy toll on the morale of the youth. Similarly, "technology fatigue" in agriculture caused by inadequacies in research and extension efforts, has led to increasing indebtedness among farm households. According to the latest report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (May 3, 2005) nearly 48.6 per cent of the 90 million farm households are caught in the debt trap. In Andhra Pradesh, 57 out of 100 indebted households are beholden to moneylenders. Although there has been much effort to increase and streamline institutional credit, small farmers still depend upon moneylenders for a variety of reasons. Farm women have by and large been bypassed by the institutional credit system, since they do not have ownership rights over land.

Modern agriculture is becoming knowledge intensive. Farmers need both generic and dynamic information on matters relating to farm operations and markets. The extension system by and large has not been able to respond to their needs, particularly in the area of dynamic information and advice on economically viable crop diversification and land and water use based on meteorological and marketing factors. Trade, quality and genetic literacy is low both among farm and fisher communities.

The work undertaken by MSSRF in setting up community centred and managed Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs) in Pondicherry based on modern information and communication technologies (ICT) has shown that ICT helps to improve the timeliness and efficiency of farm operations and enhances income through producer-oriented markets. Also, experience has shown that bridging the digital divide is a powerful method of bridging the gender divide. Knowledge connectivity therefore confers multiple economic and social benefits. The VKCs operate on the principle of social inclusion. The information provided, which includes location-specific data on entitlements to different Government schemes, is demand driven and is in the local language. For example, in Pondicherry there are over 150 schemes designed to help the poor; yet nearly 20 per cent of families are below the poverty line. After the onset of the digital age, knowledge on entitlements and how to access them has grown rapidly.

Encouraged by the ability of rural women and men to take to ICT like fish to water, the MSSRF initiated in 1993, two major steps to take ICT to every one of the over 600,000 villages in India by August 15, 2007, which marks the 60th anniversary of "our tryst with destiny." The first is the organisation of a National Alliance for Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre. The second is the establishment of the Jamsetji Tata National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity with generous support from the Tata Education Trust.

There are a large number of innovative initiatives both in the government and non-governmental sectors to take ICT to agrarian communities. A few examples are: ITC's e-choupals, EID Parry's Agri-line project, Kissan Kerala, Akshaya in Kerala, Bhoomi in Karnataka, Drishti in Haryana, SEWA in Gujarat, MSSRF's VKCs in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, E-Sewa in AP, N-Logue of IIT, Chennai, Gyandoot in Madhya Pradesh, Maha agrinet, Maharashtra, and Tarahaat of Delhi.

Some significant Government initiatives in recent years are the following:

The Right to Information Act, 2004;

The decision to set up a National Knowledge Commission headed by Sam Pitroda with Pushpa Bhargava as Vice-Chair;

The Commitment to set up 100,000 VKCs by 2007 through the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology;

The decision to join the National Alliance for Mission 2007 as announced by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in his budget speech in the following words: "The National Commission on Farmers has recommended the establishment of Rural Knowledge Centres all over the country using modern information and communication technology. Mission 2007 is a national initiative launched by an alliance comprising nearly 80 organisations including civil society organisations. Their goal is to set up a Knowledge Centre in every village by the 60th anniversary of Independence Day. Government supports the goal, and I am glad to announce that Government has decided to join the alliance and route its support through NABARD. I propose to allow NABARD to provide Rs.100 crore out of RIDF."

The announcement of a National e-Governance Plan in October 2004 and the establishment of State Wide Area Network (SWAN);

A well articulated Broadband Policy in December 2004, followed by the de-licensing of the use of wireless equipment in band 2.4 GHz to 2.4835 GHz;

The Union Planning Commission's decision to re-establish the DISNIC-PLAN project with institutional linkages to grassroots organisations;

Most State Governments also have also ICT friendly policies. Considerable investment has been made in establishing broadband connectivity throughout India. Unfortunately, 90 per cent of the Indian fibre optic infrastructure is unused and most of the cables stretching over 670,000 kilometres remain as dark fibres. Nationwide rural connectivity can be achieved if the suggestion of the National Alliance that long distance connectivity should be provided free of cost for five years to Rural Service Providers is accepted. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has suggested that the costs of rural connectivity can be met out of the USO (Universal Service Obligation) Fund. TRAI has also made important recommendations relating to community radio.

Government should provide community radio licenses to VKCs through a single window clearance system. The Internet-community radio combination is a powerful method for delivery of dynamic information. Public policy in promoting the use of community radio should be based on the following principle enunciated by the Supreme Court in its judgment delivered in December1995: "Air waves constitute public property and must be used for advancing public good." This is the same principle enshrined in the Dandi March movement of Mahatma Gandhi in relation to seawater.

Need for political will

While connectivity can be achieved if there is the requisite political will, content will decide whether or not rural families find the VKCs useful. The content must be demand driven and dynamic. At a recent meeting held at MSSRF, panchayati raj leaders have promised that they will provide space, electricity, and telephones for establishing VKCs on the panchayat office premises. Thus, all the 2,34,676 village panchayats in 31 States and Union Territories as well as traditional councils in the northeastern States can be brought together under the umbrella of the National Alliance. A hub-spokes model will help to reach all villages from panchayat VKCs. Such centres can be operated by ICT-self-help groups of rural women and men.

Besides connectivity and content, capacity building is essential for ensuring local ownership of VKCs. This is where the Jamsetji Tata National Virtual Academy (NVA) of the MSSRF hopes to play a key role. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is inducting the first 140 Fellows of the NVA drawn from 16 States on July 11, 2005, in New Delhi. He will be inaugurating at the same time a Convention of the National Alliance which has now over 150 members drawn from all sections of the information technology community.

The Fellows of NVA are rural women and men who have studied up to the Tenth class or up to the first degree. They will be master trainers and undertake the training of other rural women and men as well as children. These grassroots academicians will be the torchbearers of the rural knowledge revolution.

With the help of the Indian Space Research Organisation, additional centres are being opened in tsunami-affected areas and in farmers' "distress hotspots" in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka. These are areas where suicides by farmers occur. Those operating the computer-aided knowledge system at such centres will be either wives or daughters or sons of those who were driven to take their lives. This will help to provide a sense of realism and urgency in achieving a match between content and the need to save livelihoods and lives.

Jamsetji Tata showed how a combination of intellect and labour could help to make the impossible possible. By mobilising the power of partnership through the National Alliance for Mission 2007 and by harnessing the talent and commitment of the Fellows of the NVA, the goal of empowering rural families with the right information at the right time and place can be accomplished by August 15, 2007.

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