|
A COMMUNITY-OWNED,
SELF SUSTAINABLE AND LOW
COST
RURAL INTRANET
PROJECT
INTRODUCTION
On
January 1, 2000, Dhar district began the new millennium
with installation of low cost, self-sustainable and
community owned rural Intranet project. Dhar district is
located on the south western corner of the central India
and has a population of 1.7 million, with 54% population
being tribal (
Bhils, Bhilalas, patleiyas) and 60% population
living below poverty line. Computers in
20 village centres in ten Blocks of the district were
wired through an Intranet network (presently there are
34 such wired village centres). Local rural youth act as
entrepreneurs for running cybercafes-cum-cyberoffices on
commercial lines without salary or stipend. The computers in
the network have been established in Gram Panchayats
(Village Committee). They have been called Soochanalayas
(Information Kiosks). The Soochanalayas
provide
user-charge-based services to the rural
people. This Intranet system has been named
Gyandoot
(Messenger of Informat )
SOOCHAK
( Manager/owner
of the kiosk)
The
person operating the Soochanalaya is
a local matriculate operator and is called Soochak. A soochak is not
an employee but an entrepreneur. Soochak only needs maintenance
and numeric data entry skills. He needs very limited
typing skills since most of the Intranet software is
menu-driven
.
The Soochaks for
originally started 21 centres were selected
interactively by village committees and the local
community. Three member panels were selected by the
community who received training at their own cost at the
District Council. At the end of the training, the best
trainees were selected out of a panel of three as Soochaks. He /
she runs the Soochanalaya on
commercial lines. He has an initial one year agreement
with the village committee. He does not receive any
salary. He bears the cost of stationery, maintenance and
electric and telephone bills. He pays 10% of income as
commission to the Zila Panchayat
(District Council) for maintaining the
net.
The 13
centres started as private enterprise, the Soochak is the
owner of the establishment who pays Rs. 5,000 as a
license fee for one year to district council. Each Soochak is
expected to earn a net income of at least Rs. 36,000 per
annum at conservative projections.
SERVICES AND
FACILITIES
:
During
the formation of the project proposal a detailed RRA/PRA
exercise was taken up involving the villagers and the
community. The selection of the services was a result of
this interactive exercise and was based upon the advice
and the felt needs of the villagers. In these
meetings, it was learnt that due to lack of information
regarding the current and prevailing mandi
(agriculture produce auction centres) rates, the
farmers were unable to get the best price for their
agricultural produce. Villagers also
informed that copies of land records were difficult to
obtain. The
villager who requires a copy of the land record had to
go out in search of the patwari
(village
functionary who maintains all land records) who may or
may not be available on that particular day at his
headquarters.
For small complaints
or for giving applications, people had to go to district
headquarter which resulted in waste of time, money and
potential livelihood earnings. The services offered on
the Gyandoot network are:
Agriculture Produce
Auction Centres
Rates:
The
variety-wise current and prevailing rates of prominent
cereal crops of the district like wheat, gram, soybean,
etc. at local and other prominent auction centres of the
country are available on-line. Other statistics of the
auction centres e.g. the volume of incoming agricultural
produce, previous rates etc. are also provided on demand.
The facility is available at a nominal charge of Rs. 5.
Horticulture crops like tomato, potato, peas, green
chillies, guava etc. are also produced in substantial
quantity in the district. The rates of these
commodities are also available.
On-line
Registration of Applications:
So far, the villagers had to go to
the local revenue court to file applications for
obtaining income / caste / domicile certificates or for
getting demarcation done or for obtaining landholder's
loan passbook (rin pustika) etc.
For this, they would again made repeated visits
to the court to enquire about the progress of the
application as well as to finally collect the prepared
document. Now, through Soochanalayas they may send the
application at a cost of only Rs. 10 and thereafter, in
a maximum period of 10 days, preferably less, an
intimation of the readiness of the certificate is sent
back to them through e-mail at the concerned Soochanalaya.
Thereafter, they may go to the concerned court to
collect the certificate.
On-line Public Grievance
Redressal:
Wherever there is some problem in
the delivery of services, the villagers travel at the
cost of time, money and livelihood to Block, tahsil or district headquarters
without any certainty that they would even be able to
meet the officer concerned.
Now through the Soochanalaya, a villager may
send his / her complaint with assurance of reply within
a maximum period of seven days, preferably lesser, at a
charge of Rs. 10. The reply to his
complaint after redressal is sent back at the Soochanalaya through e-mail.
Complaints available on the intranet include
complaints regarding drinking water, scholarship
sanction / disbursement, quality of seed / fertiliser,
employee establishment matters (like leave or provident
fund sanction) queries, functioning of school, public
distribution system, beneficiary oriented schemes,
functioning of village committee etc.
Rural
e-mail facility:
A fee based e-mailing facility,
which is provided in the intranet, and it has all the
features and facilities of a state-of-the-art web based
e-mail.
Village auction site:
This facility is started since July
2000 where auction facilities are available to farmers
and villagers for land, agricultural machinery, bullocks
or equipment or other durable commodities. It opens a
new horizon of e-transactions in the rural areas. The
middlemen involved in the rural commodity transaction
market are sought to be eliminated through this
facility. One can put one’s
commodity on sale for charges of Rs. 25/- for three
months. One can browse the list of salable commodities
for Rs. 10/-.
On line matrimonial site:
A fee based on-line matrimonial
service for the villagers to choose the right match for
a prospective bride/groom. Every entry from a Soochanalaya by a villager gets
added on to a centralized database with search facility
on various criteria. The user charges for service
rendered is Rs. 25/- for three months. The program has
been designed to suit the requirements of the villagers.
Information regarding government
programmes
:
Detailed Information regarding over
a hundred government programmes is now available on the
Gyandoot Intranet. The villagers have an access to the
information regarding all government programmes related
to rural development.
Sawaliram
se puchiye:
This site provides opportunity to
schoolchildren to ask inquisitive questions regarding
career counseling or any other field from Sawaliram at no cost.
A team of experts at the district headquarter
provide the answers within three days. The facility is
created to promote inquisitiveness, ability to inquire
and scrutinize among the school children.
Ask the expert:
This facility is aimed at farmers
and villagers who can inquire about latest techniques,
advice for their problems, new technologies etc. from a
group of experts pertaining to fields of agriculture,
animal husbandry, health, or related to legal opinion.
The service is provided at Rs 5/- user charge.
Free E-mail facility on social
issues:
Free of cost option are available
to the villagers to inform regarding child labour, child
marriage, illegal possession of land belonging to
Scheduled Tribes etc. Besides they can send e-mails to
others connected through the net with the help of this
facility in Hindi.
Avedan Patra:
This facility provides on-line
application formats required by local administration and
departments of the state government. Thus, application
forms are available at the doorsteps of the villagers
and avoid their running from pillar to post for these
application forms.
Transparency in government
working:
Updated and latest information
regarding public distribution system, list of below
poverty line families, beneficiaries of social security
pension, beneficiaries of rural development schemes,
information regarding government grants given to village
committees, etc. are available on the intranet which
makes the government functioning transparent.
Gaon ka Akhabar (Village
Newspaper):
A local web-based newspaper is
available to cater to the rural people. The newspaper
delivers micro-news about the happening around the
villages where Soochaks act as correspondents.
E-education (shiksha gyandoot):
This site contains reading material
to supplement and help the students in understanding and
learning their subjects in a better way. It contains
things like syllabuses of various subjects taught in
class X and XII, question banks developed by a team of
experts to help in preparation of exams, chithi to help
them keep in touch with other schools connected to the
intranet etc.
Employment News:
This site contains employment news
for semi skilled employees.
Below Poverty line list:
The site contains the whole list of
below the poverty line families and anyone can check his
her name in the list.
STRENGTHENING OF PROJECT:
In order to make Soochanalayas economically
viable entities and to improve the functioning of the
project following steps are being taken
:
Additional facilities at Soochanalayas :
To make Soochanalayas economically
viable soochaks are given licenses to
vendor government judicial stamps and powers of petition
writer are also delegated to them. Due to the delegation
of above mentioned powers additional incomes are
possible and the Soochanalayas are becoming
virtual cyber offices. .
On-line linking of all departments
with gyandoot server :
A local Area Network
(LAN) linking all the major district offices has been
installed. As a result, the district heads of various
government departments like health, education, tribal
development, revenue, food, agriculture, public health
engineering, District Council and District Magistrate
etc. are connected directly to gyandoot network. This
provides backup support and logistics to gyandoot
network.
E-education
initiatives:
The Gyandoot Samiti, with the help
from Member of Parliament, has established 32 kiosks at the high schools
and higher secondary schools. We are providing them
local educational contents through the server. They are
also accessing internet for other educational contents.
Each school is having Computer Club to promote
activities related to IT among rural students.
EXPANSION OF THE
PROJECT:
Some fundamental guidelines were
framed for future expansion. They were:
1). Centers to be opened only in
the villages where local telephone exchange is having
OFC and fair connectivity,
2). New centers to be created
through private investment.
3). New services and facilities to
be introduced in phased manner.
ACTION
PLAN FOR INCREASING USAGE OF THE NETWORK
A comprehensive and integrated
multi-media mass campaign concentrating on IEC
activities has been launched in the district. The
campaign focuses on penetration and propagation of the
project in the hinterland of the district. Indian
Institute of Management, Indore is collaborating to
provide structured inputs for the IEC activities. The
steps taken include:
Gyandoot medhavi chhatra (talented
students) scholarship:
From the funds
available with gyandoot, two scholarships each of Rs.
1,000/- per month for 5 years have been announced. For
the scholarship, only those students of the district
would be eligible who motivate 10 or more villagers to
use gyandoot facilities between the period 1st September to 31st December 2000. The
scholarships will be finalised through an on-line test
of the eligible students and the result of the test
would be declared on 26th January 2001. This scheme
uses the services of the students to propagate new
technology and its power among the rural masses.
Visit of school children to
nearest Soochnalaya
:
Students of class IX,
X, XI, XII are taken to the nearest Soochanalaya on study tour.
These students are given elaborate demonstration on the
gyandoot Intranet system and
the facilities available at the centre.
Gramsabha in the villages in
the project area
:
Special gramsabhas (Meeting of all
villagers) in each village in the project area have been
started which will be completed by January, 2001. These
specially convened village meetings will deliberate on
gyandoot and its services, which are available there at
nominal cost.
.Audio-Visual
campaign :
Posters and pamphlets have been
distributed to all the concerned village committees. TV
cable network and cinema halls are being used to
popularise gyandoot services. Audiocassettes carrying
gyandoot messages are being used
in weekly haat bazaars (market
places).
Use of ISRO-DECU communication
project :
A communication
project has been established by ISRO (Indian Space
Research Organisation) which is already functional in
200 villages of the district. The said project carries
message on the gyandoot project.
Gyandoot Computer Clubs
:
Gyandoot Computer Clubs are being
established in major high schools and higher secondary
schools of the district.
Incentives:
Incentive in the form of cash
awards (Rs.5,000/-, Rs.3,000/-, Rs. 2,000/-) along with
certificate of excellence were given to three best
performing Soochaks and certificate of
appreciation were given to the village head of the
concerned village committee on 15th August,2000. These
incentives are being offered twice a year.
Sir Ratan Tata Trust Healthy
Child Competition:
Sir Ratan Tata Trust has granted
Rs. three lakhs to organise healthy child competition
based on Soochnalayas. The scheme has
dual objective of promoting good practices of child
rearing among rural masses and at the same time let them
know about IT and its usages. The competition is
organised with Soochanalayas as nodal points.
It will motivate villagers to come to the kiosks. This
competition was recently organised (between 9th to 19th April 2001) and was a huge
success with 29140 children (12113 boys and 16027 girls)
participating in it. All the people coming to the soochanalaya for this purpose
were explained the utility of the Gyandoot network. It
is expected that this will popularise the use of the
network for various purposes.
PROJECT PARTNERS
:
|
No |
Organisation name |
Role in the project |
|
1 |
District Council (Zila panchayat) |
Conceptualisation of the
project, bringing together the financial
resources, management of the server room |
|
2 |
District Administration |
Conceptualisation of the
project, co-ordination, Commanding the back-end
human system, Liasing with the State
Government |
|
3 |
State Government of Madhya
Pradesh |
Providing vision to use IT
for rural masses |
|
4 |
District planning
Committee |
Monitoring and evaluation |
|
5 |
National Informatics
Center |
Software Maintenance &
all required Technical Support. |
|
6 |
Gyandoot Society |
Enrichment and expansion of
the project, IEC, software development, induction
of new technology, capacity building |
STOCKHOLM CHALLENGE AWARD
2000:
Gyandoot project of Dhar District
has been awarded Stockholm Challenge IT Award 2000 at a
glittering function in Town Hall, Stockholm on 6th June 2000.
In the words of the
organisers, Stockholm City Economic Development Agency
in partnership with the European Commission
:
"The Stockholm
Challenge Award is a challenge between pioneering IT
projects world wide ... The Stockholm Challenge award
focuses on the benefit that information technology can
bring people and society. The technology itself is not
the issue. ... The single most important criterion is
the benefit the project can bring to individuals,
society and the environment by using inspirational
approaches within the local context."
Gyandoot was declared winner in
"Public Service and Democracy" category out of 109 IT
projects from all over the world. The gyandoot project
is the only Indian project to receive the award in any
category in last four years.
The 29 member international Jury
has stated its motivation in identifying Gyandoot
Project as a winner as follows:
"Project "Gyandoot" is a unique
government to citizen Intranet project implemented in a
tribal district (Dhar) in Central India, with numerous
benefits to the region, including a people-based
self-reliant sustainable strategy. "Gyandoot" is
recognised as a breakthrough in e-government,
demonstrating a paradigm shift which gives marginalised
tribal citizens their first ever chance to access
knowledge, with minimum investment."
CSI-TCS NATIONAL
IT AWARD:
The project is
awarded CSI-TCS
National IT Award for best IT usage, instituted
by the Computer Society of India, for the year 2000. The
final contestants for the award were ICICI Bank, Global
Trust Bank, SAIL and National Crime Record Bureau, along
with the Gyandoot project.
| 
