Despite registering GDP growth rates of over 8 per cent, India has yet to chieve much in terms of closing the urban-rural gap. While urban India is sprinting ahead in terms of income, literacy levels and infrastructure, rural India is lagging behind several steps.
Given that India lives mostly in its villages, it is imperative that this gap is bridged at the earliest. In fact, with a 700million-strong population, the rural areas are a mine of untapped potential. Telecom operators are becoming alive to this opportunity as urban demand reaches saturation levels. Increasing broadband coverage in these areas will not only trigger the next wave of telecom growth but also play a key role in bringing about the much-needed socio-economic transformation.
Internet and broadband facilities enable people to interact with governments, conduct business communication with peers, and access better healthcare and education services via applications such as e-commerce, e-health, e-education, e-governance, etc. These increase overall awareness, enhance economic development, expedite societal transformation and help to bring the rural areas into the mainstream of the economy.
Having declared 2007 as the year of broadband, the government has initiated a Rs 40 billion project to increase broadband penetration across 600,000 villages in India. The project, which is due for completion by 2010, envisions broadband coverage to spread to over 200,000 villages by June 2008 and 300,000 villages by June 2009.
By providing support from the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund to service providers for setting up active infrastructure such as base stations, the government intends to deliver broadband services with a minimum speed of 512 kbps within a 10 km radius of all village block headquarters. The services would be delivered via info-kiosks, a rural version of the urban cyber cafés. Villagers would be able to access the services free of charge.The government has outlined the need to increase the number of info-kiosks across the country as per the Bharat Nirman project (2005-09).
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), which has been selected to cover around 60,000 villages, has already started work on its part of the project, and has shortlisted Siemens, Ericsson and ZTE as the equipment vendors. The rest of the project will be implemented by private telecom operators, who will be chosen on the basis of a USO Fund bidding process.
Recent initiatives
Grameen Gyan Abhiyan
In August 2007, the government launched the Grameen Gyan Abhiyan (GGA), which envisages knowledge and skill empowerment of rural families using information and communication technology (ICT). A nationwide scheme, it will cover every block with a village resource centre, and provide a village knowledge centre for each panchayat. Last mile connectivity will be achieved through a combination of the internet and community radio, as well as that of the internet and mobile phones.
Common Service Centres
The Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme is yet another initiative to enhance rural broadband penetration. It is part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the National Common Minimum Programme. It aims to provide e-governance countrywide through a publicprivate partnership (PPP) model. The scheme proposes to roll out 100,000 CSCs in the rural areas and 10,000 CSCs in the urban areas. The kiosks will be spread equitably across the country.
IL&FS has been appointed as the programme management agency to assist the Department of Information Technology and the participating states in the preimplementation and implementation phases of the programme. To this end, IL&FS has signed a memorandum of understanding with Intel, which will provide the former with education consultancy to identify suitable ICT-enabled programmes. Intel will also offer advisory services for wireless implementation of rural broadband, define the infrastructure required, and provide some of the content for the CSCs.
e-Disha Ekal Seva Kendras
Other private companies such as Hughes Communications India Limited (HCIL), Microsoft, Alcatel-Lucent, etc. are also involved in various rural broadband initiatives. For instance, HCIL and Comsat have partnered with the Haryana government to roll out e-Disha Ekal Seva Kendras across the Rohtak telecom division.
The e-Disha Kendras will provide rural citizens with access to e-governance applications like certificates, land records, social welfare, etc. They will also offer services such as interactive education, railway and airline ticketing, mobile prepaid topups and international voice calling.
Project Saksham
Microsoft has partnered with HCIL to introduce 5,000 broadband-enabled ICT kiosks across 200 small towns and rural regions in India. As part of its rural computing initiative Project Saksham, Microsoft will offer free 12-day IT literacy programmes for kiosk operators. The kiosks will be operated on a franchiseebased model, offering e-governance, ecommerce and e-education facilities.HCIL will offer broadband services, internet access, prepaid top-ups, value-added services, education services and international voice calling.
Infothela
As part of the Media Labs Asia project (in which Alcatel-Lucent is involved), the IIT Kanpur-Lucknow Lab is working on a completely new concept. In February 2006, it developed a battery-powered infothela, a mobile platform equipped with internet and telecom facilities to spread IT to people in remote areas.
The 200 kg, Rs 70,000, all-weather infothela is designed to spread information about education, healthcare, weather, agriculture and employment. It can check land records as well. Its features include a “digital mandi” ?? an electronic platform for the agro commodities business.
In order to promote mass participation, IITians are planning to invite educated and unemployed village youth to operate the infothela. The prototype is ready and runs on BSNL’s cable network. Pilot trials are being conducted in 50 villages between Kanpur and Lucknow.
e-Choupal
There are currently over 10,000 ongoing initiatives to expedite the spread of ICT services in the rural areas. Though many have hit rough patches, some have been undisputedly successful and lucrative.These success stories propel the growth of other new and innovative business models.
e-Choupal is only one of the many success stories. It is a nationwide infokiosk-based e-procurement network set up by ITC in 2000. The kiosks enable farmers to sell their produce at ITC collection shops at competitive market rates.This prevents farmers from being exploited by intermediaries.
There are currently 6,500 e-Choupal installations covering nine states and 38,500 villages. In its first year, e-Choupals saved approximately $280,000 on just a single crop, soya. The network is estimated to have benefited 3.5 million farmers.
The programme also generated employment. Local farmers, called sanchalaks, are selected and trained by ITC to operate the kiosks. In 2004, in a show of support for the venture, Alcatel-Lucent joined hands with ITC for the cause.
In the future, the project will be extended to cover 15 states and 100,000 villages through 20,000 installations.
Challenges
Increasing broadband penetration in the rural areas is an extremely challenging task. The business model has to be meticulously planned out in order to generate sufficient rates of return. PPPs have been known to generate the best results.
Increasing rural broadband penetration is a costly affair. It involves high capital and operating expenditures as there is a lack of available transmission and backhaul capability for economically delivering broadband services. There is also limited availability of low-cost devices and premises equipment.
In urban areas, the expenses are spread across high usage and high paying customers. However, there are relatively fewer users in the rural areas, most of whom have low usage.
Connecting the rural areas is yet another obstacle. At present, the majority of semi-urban and rural areas do not have appropriate wireline networks for data connectivity. And wired technologies such as DSL can reach only up to 5 km from the central office, making them unviable for rural areas.
Though there is an extensive optic fibre backbone available across the country, this belongs to BSNL and private operators are not permitted to access it for last mile connectivity.
Hence, the most feasible way to provide broadband access in the rural areas is through wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi, Wi-Max and 3G. However, though these technologies offer a high degree of mobility, they are expensive to deploy and are susceptible to radio interference and signal loss. They also depend on spectrum ?? a scarce resource for which there are many contenders.
Moreover, many villages in India have little or no power supply. In others, power supply is very erratic. Interruptions in power supply and low voltage demotivate users from availing of info-kiosk services.The issue of supplying reliable power to the info-kiosks thus needs special attention before planning any ICT-based interventions in the rural areas.
The rural areas also have very low PC penetration due to a host of factors including low incomes and lack of awareness.The government needs to encourage the introduction of sub-Rs 10,000 personal computers with attractive financial schemes. The provision of basic IT education is also an imperative.
Finally, in order to ensure sufficient demand for the service, broadband must offer relevant content for the rural population in the local language. Most of the existing content is in English, which hampers rural internet usage.
The road ahead
With rural connectivity stagnating at dismally low levels, proponents of rural broadband connectivity have their work cut out. However, with strong government backing and ample private participation, India is now on its way to overcome the major obstacles and reach the target of 9 million subscribers by end-2007.
