India, the largest democracy and the second most populous country in the world, is predominantly rural in nature. Of the 1.027 billion-strong Indian populace, 741 million live in 638,365 villages scattered across the diverse terrain of India.
The economic liberalization policies of the Government of India have resulted in developing the services industry by leaps and bounds. However, an urban populace, with increased purchasing power and an array of goods and services to choose from mostly enjoy the fruits of this growth. This has encouraged the migration of the rural populace, which largely got left behind in this economic revival.
The same is in the case of telecom boom, which swept through the Indian telecom industry & is predominantly urban in nature. There is a huge discrepancy in the subscriber density of rural areas as compared to urban India ranging from 44 subscribers per sq km in urban areas to less than 3 in remote rural areas.
Recent times have seen a change in the trend, with rural telephony becoming the focus of Indian Government and the efforts to bridge the wide “Digital Divide” gaining momentum. Saturation of the urban markets has also added fuel to the fire and the private operators, in their search of newer markets, have started looking up to rural India as a plum opportunity.
But the ride to rural telephony is not very smooth and the service providers are face-to-face with hurdles like high cost of telecom infrastructure, the diverse terrain, low affordability levels of the rural masses. So, what are the solutions…technologies that are cost-effective, easy to deploy, applications and services that are appropriate, business models that are scalable and a regulatory environment that is rural in nature.
Wireless technologies fast gaining prominence in the Indian telecom scenario. These technologies have reformatted the entire urban telecommunication network but also look promising for the rural areas. Various wireless broadband access technologies like WiMAX are proving to be cost-effective and can help bring down barriers for entering rural markets.
These technologies will not only help merge the urban and rural fabric together but will also bring about revolutionary changes in the fields of Education, health and livelihood for the rural populace. For education in rural areas, though the schools do exist in most parts, the quality of teachers & of the education imparted and infrastructure is questionable. ICT can become an important tool in plugging these gaps. Apart from this the other benefits would be Telemedicine through video-conferencing between urban doctors and rural patients.
However, above all, ICT can definitely provide chances to rural people to enhance their livelihood. The demand for ICT and services can be sustained in the long run only by generating rural wealth. The primary wealth creators in this context are agriculture and agri-processing, animal husbandry, small-scale handicrafts, food processing and often, even IT enabled services.
Rural India is at a critical stage. It is large in size; problems are aplenty, the challenges are daunting and thus can present a scary picture to an outsider. But if enabled, it has the potential to transform itself quickly. The future seems to be more fruitful as the advancements are actually moving ahead with IT implementations. In the near future we will see more examples coming to reality, and they will be achieved through IT advancements. PC and Internet penetration may remain in assisted mode for some more time. However, IT penetration at the back-end of the government and business processes is going to change the Indian scenario in a big way.
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