How ICT Can Drive Development in Rural India Through the Private and For-Profit Model of ICT-Enabled...

Can ICT Drive Development in Rural India

Through the Private and For-Profit Model

of ICT-Enabled Kiosks?

Case Studies of ITC e-Choupal, n-Logue and Drishtee

Sébastien Bianchi

Master in Information Systems

HEC Lausanne

Professor: Alessandro Villa

Expert: Christine Lutringer-Gully

Lausanne, academic year 2014 – 2015

This work is jointly carried out under the Master in Information Systems at HEC Lausanne and the

Minor in Area and Cultural Studies at EPFL.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the people who supported me in the completion of this

final Master thesis. First and foremost, I am grateful to my supervisor, Professor

Alessandro Villa from HEC Lausanne, and to my expert, Professor Christine

Lutringer-Gully from EPFL; they have been source of support and guidance.

Moreover, this Master thesis would not have been complete without the

contribution of different personalities I interviewed from December 2014 to

January 2015: Sarat Chandra, Anshuman Bahadur Saxena, K. M. Baharul Islam,

Maitrayee Mukerji, Rajendra Kumar, Jai Asundi, Satyan Mishra and Tim

Unwin. Furthermore, it is a real pleasure to acknowledge Tania Balderas for her

contribution to the reading and correcting of my English, as I am not a native

English speaker/writer. Finally, I really appreciated the support of my sister,

Caroline Bianchi, and my flatmate, Verena Spierer, for proof reading my work

and for their insightful commentary.

Abstract

This academic thesis takes into consideration the case of India which represents

a developing country that is making a considerable investment in information and

communication technologies (ICTs) for over a decade. This country presents a

significative urban-rural divide related to underpriviledged socio-economic

conditions in rural areas in contrast to the more favorable socio-economic

conditions of urban areas. In fact, rural India counts over 700 millions inhabitants

(around 70% of the population) but generates not more than 20% total GDP. ICT

can be decomposed into four dimensions (4 C’s framework) which serve as shift

levers for bridging digital divide in India: computing, connectivity, content and

capacity (human). Sub-factors of the urban-rural divide affecting the nature of

digital divide can then be identified by observing their relationship with the

sociocultural and socioeconomic situation of rural India: awareness, availability,

accessibility and affordability. There are, however, plenty of ways or models to

strengthen rural livelihoods; the one I chose to examine in this work is the private

and for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks as it aims at scaling a business model

into small businesses very quickly, while making them self-sustaining. Through

three case studies, which are ITC e-Choupal (currently still operational), n-Logue

(no longer operational) and Drishtee (still operational but evolved), critical issues

encountered with that model for bridging digital divide and driving socio-

economic development in rural India will be discussed: sustainability and

scalability of the business model, adaptability and affordability of the services

provided, innovation of the infrastructure and the connectivity model, awareness

of the villagers and training and affordability of the village-based entrepreneurs.

There is not a simple answer to the question asked in the title of this thesis;

nonetheless, it is somehow possible to state that no private and for-profit model

based on ICT can survive if it does not effectively consider at least one of the four

sub-factors of the digital divide previously cited.

Keywords: ICT, rural India, digital divide, ICT-D/ICT4D, ICT-enabled kiosks, e-Choupal, n-Logue, Drishtee.

Contents

Acknowledgements ...................................................................................... 1

Abstract ................................................................................................... 2

Figures .................................................................................................... 6

1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 1

1.1 Points of interest ................................................................................... 2

1.2 Methodology....................................................................................... 3

1.3 Limitations ......................................................................................... 4

2. Literature Review ..................................................................................... 5

3. ICT in India ........................................................................................... 11

3.1 Introduction to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) .......................... 11

3.2 The 4C’s framework ............................................................................. 12

3.3 Measuring ICT ................................................................................... 13

3.4 Context of India .................................................................................. 17

3.4.1 The country: some statistics ................................................................ 17

3.4.2 Urban-rural divide ........................................................................... 19

3.4.3 Other divides: castes, gender and states .................................................... 23

3.4.4 The resulting digital divide ................................................................. 28

4. Bridging digital divide and driving development ................................................... 36

4.1 How to bridge digital divide? .................................................................... 38

4.1.1 Computing ................................................................................... 38

4.1.2 Connectivity ................................................................................. 39

4.1.3 Content ....................................................................................... 39

4.1.4 Capacity ...................................................................................... 40

4.1.5 ICT policy ................................................................................... 40

4.2 ICT for Development (ICT4D) vs. ICT and Development (ICT-D) ........................... 43

4.2.1 ICT4D ........................................................................................ 43

4.2.2 ICT-D ........................................................................................ 45

5. The private and for-profit ICT-enabled kiosks ...................................................... 46

5.1 Definition of ICT-enabled kiosks ................................................................ 46

5.2 ICT-enabled kiosks: emergence and evolution of the movement .............................. 47

5.3 ICT-enabled kiosks: the movement in India .................................................... 50

5.4 Separations at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” .................................................... 52

5.5 The private model ................................................................................ 57

5.5.1 The corporate model ........................................................................ 58

5.5.2 The franchise model ......................................................................... 58

5.6 Typology of services ............................................................................. 59

5.6.1 Agriculture ................................................................................... 60

5.6.2 Education .................................................................................... 64

5.6.3 Healthcare .................................................................................... 65

5.6.4 E-government services ...................................................................... 68

5.6.5 Financial and utility services ................................................................ 69

6. Introduction to the case studies ...................................................................... 70

6.1 Source of data .................................................................................... 70

6.1.1 Secondary data............................................................................... 70

6.1.2 Primary data ................................................................................. 73

6.2 SWOT analysis ................................................................................... 73

6.3 Methodology...................................................................................... 74

7. Case study 1: ITC e-Choupal ........................................................................ 75

7.1 Context of implementation ....................................................................... 75

7.2 Business Model ................................................................................... 77

7.3 Rural empowerment .............................................................................. 83

7.3.1 Achievements ................................................................................ 83

7.3.2 Critical issues ................................................................................ 92

7.3.3 SWOT ........................................................................................ 95

8. Case study 2: n-Logue ................................................................................ 96

8.1 Context of implementation ....................................................................... 96

8.2 Business Model ................................................................................... 99

8.3 Rural empowerment ............................................................................ 105

8.3.1 Achievements .............................................................................. 105

8.3.2 Critical issues .............................................................................. 112

8.3.3 SWOT ...................................................................................... 118

9. Case study 3: Drishtee .............................................................................. 119

9.1 Context of implementation ..................................................................... 119

9.2 Business Model ................................................................................. 121

9.3 Rural empowerment ............................................................................ 128

9.3.1 Achievements .............................................................................. 128

9.3.2 Critical issues .............................................................................. 131

9.3.3 SWOT (on the telecentre-based model of Drishtee) ..................................... 136

10. Discussion ......................................................................................... 137

10.1 Digital divide .................................................................................. 137

10.2 Socio-cultural and socio-economic empowerment .......................................... 139

10.3 Scalability ..................................................................................... 142

10.4 Sustainability .................................................................................. 143

10.4.1 Financial sustainability .................................................................. 144

10.4.2 Value propositions ....................................................................... 146

10.4.3 Partnerships and regulation .............................................................. 148

10.4.4 Technical capacity ....................................................................... 150

10.4.5 Kiosk entrepreneur capacity ............................................................. 151

10.4.6 Awareness, capacity and affordability of the BOP ..................................... 152

11. Conclusion ......................................................................................... 154

12. References ......................................................................................... 158

12.1 Works .......................................................................................... 158

12.2 Websites ....................................................................................... 170

13. Appendix .......................................................................................... 173

13.1 IDI (2007 and 2002) .......................................................................... 173

13.2 IDI access sub-index (2007 and 2002) ....................................................... 174

13.3 IDI skills sub-index (2007 and 2002) ........................................................ 175

13.4 ICT Price Basket 2008 ........................................................................ 176

13.5 Statistics of states of India: Population, Area, Rate of literacy (2011) ..................... 177

13.6 Statistics of states of India: Area, Rate of literacy and IMR (2011) ........................ 178

13.7 Statistics of states of India: Area, Rate of literacy, ICT appliances (2011) ................ 179

13.8 How ICTs can help achieve MDG? .......................................................... 180

13.9 Separations at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” ................................................. 181

13.10 Examples of ICT applications in rural contexts ............................................ 182

13.11 Research Study 2: regressions and graphs ................................................. 183

13.12 Interviewing guide: Frequently asked questions ........................................... 186

13.13 Biographies of the interviewees ............................................................ 187

Figures

Figure 1 - Networked Readiness Index (WEF, 2014) ........................................................................ 14

Figure 2 - Digital Opportunity Index (ITU, 2006) ............................................................................. 14

Figure 3 - 2007 ICT Opportunity Index: sub-indices and indicators (ITU, 2007) ............................. 15

Figure 4 - IDI and ICT Price Basket comparison (ITU, 2009) .......................................................... 15

Figure 5 - Top ten economies - broadband Internet sub-basket (2008) (ITU, 2009) ......................... 15

Figure 6 - ICT Development Index - Weighting of indicators (ITU, 2009) ...................................... 16

Figure 7 - Three stages in the evolution towards an information society (ITU, 2009) ...................... 16

Figure 8 - Evolution of the digital divide between IDI groups, 2002-2007 (ITU, 2007) .................. 16

Figure 9 - IDI sub-indices by level of development (2002-2007) (ITU, 2007) ................................. 16

Figure 10 - Some statistics about India, 2000-2012 (World Bank, 2014) ......................................... 17

Figure 11 - Human Development Index (HDI) (HDR, 2011) ............................................................ 18

Figure 12 – Urban/Rural population, 1951-2011 (World Bank, 2014) ............................................. 19

Figure 13 -Average IMR between rural and urban areas, 1995, 2005 and 2013 (author) ................. 21

Figure 14 - Under five and infant mortality indicators, 2005 (Government of India, 2006) ............ 22

Figure 15 - World Development Indicators (World Bank, 2014) ...................................................... 22

Figure 16 - Agriculture, Industry and Services in India, 2000-2013 (World Bank, 2014) ................ 23

Figure 17 - Literacy rate, gender, 2001-2006 (World Bank, 2014) ................................................... 25

Figure 18 - Level of S&T, 2004-2005 (Bhattacharya and Graham, 2008) ........................................ 26

Figure 19 - Household ownership of selected goods and services, 2004-2005 ................................. 27

Figure 20 - Universal acces vs. Universal service (Barrett and Slavova, 2011) ................................ 30

Figure 21 - Access to services, appliances and infrastructure (Barrett and Slavova, 2011) .............. 31

Figure 22 - Tele-density (rural/urban) 1999-2006 (Bhattacharya and Vickery, 2008) ...................... 33

Figure 23 – Rural/urban teledensity (Subramanian and Arivanandan, 2009) .................................... 33

Figure 24 - Status of telecom indicators, 2005 (Bhattacharya and Vickery, 2008) ........................... 33

Figure 25 - Internet world's content (Techinasia, 2012) .................................................................... 35

Figure 26 - Livelihood assets (Tripathi, Singh and Kumar, 2012) .................................................... 37

Figure 27 - From push to pull strategies (ICTlogy, 2008) ................................................................. 42

Figure 28 - The commercial infrastructure at the BOP (Ruohonen and al (eds.), 2012) ................... 53

Figure 29 - The World Economic Pyramid (Prahalad and Hart, 2002) ............................................. 54

Figure 30 - Research Propositions (Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p. 5) ................................................. 55

Figure 31 - Telecentre/ICT-enabled kiosks network model (Liyanage, 2009, p. 147) ...................... 57

Figure 32 – Telecentre as outreach window (adapted from Liyanage, 2009, p. 147) ........................ 60

Figure 33 - Agriculture and employment in India (WorldBank, 2014) ............................................. 61

Figure 34 - Agricultural extension as part of AKIS/RD (Unwin, 2009, p. 50) .................................. 62

Figure 35 - Evolution of information sources to farmers (Mittal, 2012, p. 15) ................................. 63

Figure 36 - Economic characteristics of sample states (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 9) ................... 71

Figure 37 - SWOT Analysis template (Team FME, 2009, p. 6) ........................................................ 73

Figure 38 - The mandi system (OpenIDEO, 2012) ............................................................................ 76

Figure 39 - The e-Choupal system (OpenIDEO, 2012) ..................................................................... 76

Figure 40 - ITC e-Choupal timeline (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 2) ......................................... 76

Figure 41 - Profit of farmers and e-Choupal (Admane, 2014, p. 255) ............................................... 79

Figure 42 - e-Choupal 2.0 value chain (Seas of Change, 2012, p. 2) ................................................ 80

Figure 43 – e-Choupal 3.0 Business Model (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 9) ............................. 81

Figure 44 - e-Choupal Supply Chain (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 4) ....................................... 84

Figure 45 - Research Study 1: Comparison of transaction time (Admane, 2014, p. 255) ................. 85

Figure 46 - Research Study 1: Satisfaction with e-Choupal (Admane, 2014, p. 255) ....................... 87

Figure 47 - Employment exchanges (adapted from Admane, 2014, p. 254) ..................................... 88

Figure 48 - VSAT satellite dish for connectivity (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 7) ................................. 91

Figure 49 - SWOT Analysis of ITC e-Choupal (Author, 2014) ........................................................ 95

Figure 50 - n-Logue's business model (Jhunjhunwala and al, 2004, p. 33) ..................................... 100

Figure 51 - Figure 51 - Operating model of n-Logue (Paul, 2004, p. 8) ......................................... 100

Figure 52 - corDECT design (Paul, 2004, p. 7) ............................................................................... 101

Figure 53 - the top services of all n-Logue kiosks, 2004 (Paul, 2004, p. 24) .................................. 103

Figure 54 - Kiosk services frequency (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 10) ......................................... 103

Figure 55 - Highest revenue generating services by State (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 27).......... 104

Figure 56 – corDECT vs. Traditional technologies (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001, p. 7) ..... 106

Figure 57 - n-Logue wireless access tower (Tirumvallur) (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 7) ................. 107

Figure 58 - N-Logue kiosk near Pabal, Maharashtra (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 2) .......................... 108

Figure 59 - Remote eye-care consultation (Jhunjhunwala and al, 2004, p. 36) ............................... 110

Figure 60 – Remote configuration (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 7) ............................. 110

Figure 61 - n-Logue telemedicine model (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 6) ................... 110

Figure 62 - Age distribution of kiosk users (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 6) ...................................... 115

Figure 63 - Distribution of religions of kiosk users (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 7) ......................... 115

Figure 64 - SWOT Analysis of n-Logue (Author, 2014) ................................................................. 118

Figure 65 - Impact assessment (Drishtee, 2014) .............................................................................. 129

Figure 66 - Factors contributing to telecentre sustainability (Liyanage, 2009, p. 53) ..................... 144

Figure 67 - Mapping the reasons for non-sustainability (Liyanage, 2009, p. 26) ............................ 144

1

1. Introduction

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are commonly used nowadays to stress the

role of unified and integrated technical means that provide users with information they can access

to, share and store according to their preferences and needs. As ICTs provide a large spectrum of

tools that have been widely acknowledged as important resources for the socio-economic

development of developing countries all over the globe, it can be more specific to consider the

impact ICT can have on rural development of developing countries.

The case of India is paticularly appropriate since it allows us to closely analyse the relationships

between ICT and the different socio-economic and socio-cultural aspects, especially due to the

existing divides in India - urban-rural divide, caste divide, gender divide, state divide, etc. - which

in turn, have a direct effect on the digital divide.

Supported by ICT policies from the Indian Government and from States of India as well, ICT-

enabed kiosks emerged in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s as an ICT for development (ICT4D)

mainstream and enabler for bridging the digital divide in the rural areas. These kiosks were either

operated by the public sector (through e-governance initiatives) or they resulted from private sector

initiatives, sometimes in partnership with the public sector as well (public-private partnerships).

Driven by the private sector, the private (either franchise- or corrporate-led) and for-profit model of

ICT-enabled kiosks has been massively implemented and scaled through rural India during the

2000’s. Even with the fast expansion of mobile telephony and related applications in today’s rural

India, I find valuable to ask the following question in order to analyse the progess, shortcomings

and other critical issues encountered through the franchise and for-profit model of ICT-enabled

kiosks:

“Can ICT drive development in rural India through the

private and for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks?”

2

1.1 Points of interest

In this work, the impact of ICT4D on rural India is explored, with a special focus on the franchise

and for-profit model in rural India. Why? I asked myself whether it was possible to succeed in

launching profitable ICT-enabled kiosks for the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) in rural India in

order to consequently bridge the existing digital divide between urban and rural areas (urban-rural

divide) and propel socio-economic development in spite of the significant lack of infrastructure and

efficient institutions. In addition, I will delineate the effectiveness of information and

communication services through the ICTs ability to answer the needs of rural Indian communities in

the areas of agriculture, education, health, e-governance, banking and utility services. Moreover, the

role and the evolution over time of the ICT policy in India provide feedbacks on the importance

institutions play for ICT4D in India.

However, it is absolutely necessary to keep a holistic approach in order to understand the

underlying factors which could influence the impact of ICT4D in rural India. Therefore, it is of

upmost importance to consider the socio-cultural and economic divides existing in India,

particularly the urban-rural divide, which in turn can engender digital divide throughout the

country.

As my main focus remains on ICT4D in rural India, I study three cases, ITC e-Choupal, n-Logue

and Drishtee, which permit me to illustrate by their own context of implementation and business

model, the way they operated ICT-enabled kiosks and the success or failure they encountered in

accordance to the strategy followed.

A discussion platform takes place where I gather my main observations regarding the achievements

and the critical issues of the private and for-profit model in bridging digital divide and driving

development. Examples based on the case studies illustrate and complement the discussion

platform. The last point of interest consists in making further considerations, so that I can take into

account in that section how the franchise and for-profit model is currently functioning and the

various paths followed by ICT in order to drive development in rural India.

3

1.2 Methodology

In the very beginning, I contextualize ICT in rural India: valuable statistics are gathered in order to

better contextualize the urban-rural divide. Using a framework (awareness, availability,

accessibility, affordability), the idea is to first identify the resulting digital divide to better

understand how the digital divide is engendered in this country. For this purpose, I use the 4C’s

framework in order to assess how ICT can effectively outline the shift levers available for bridging

digital divide. The ICT-D and ICT4D discourses are then juxtaposed, ensuing in the description of

the private and for-profit models of ICT-enabled kiosks in the following section.

As previously mentioned, I practically make use of all three case studies on the franchise and for-

profit model for development in rural India: the first still currently operating, with a focus in the

middle of India. The case of ITC e-Choupal, no longer operational, focusing on the South and

West of India, n-Logue, and finally, still operational today but strategically changed, with a focus

on the North and the East regions, Drishtee. Throughout the two case studies I explored, I use a

same framework, the SWOT business analysis technique, in order to compare and contrast their

capacity for sustainable development.

Finally, based on a secondary and primary data research, I conclude by mitigating the success rate

of ICT-enabled kiosks in driving rural India forward depending on the challenges encountered,

which are explained one by one in a discussion platform. The primary research has been done

through interviews (face-to-face, skype and e-mail); this allowed me to pose questions and obtain

valuable feedback on observations resulting from the analysis of secondary sources.

4

1.3 Limitations

In this work, I decide to focus on the franchise and profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks. Therefore, I

excluded from my research e-governance initiatives or other ICT initiatives such as ICT public-

private partnerships. Moreover, I specifically studied the socio-economic impact ICT-enabled

kiosks may have on rural development and empowerment by taking into account the resulting

digital divide from the urban-rural dichotomy of India. No primary research study on the ground has

been conducted due to time and location reasons. Furthermore, an important limitation in this work

related to the literature review I have been able to gather, is the time interval of analysis related to

the early phase of the telecenters’ movement from 2000 to 2010. Therefore, even though the critical

issues I raise in the end of this work are relevant to the private and for-profit models of the ICT-

enabled kiosks, technology is constantly evolving and certain issues regarding cost of technology,

connectivity and content can be more easily overcome nowadays. Finally, it is important to

underline once more that I have limited my research to the ICT-enabled kiosks in accordance to my

primary and secondary research data, as well as my own perspective; this seems to remain the best

approach to address low-socioeconomic, large, underserved or even communities that are yet to

obtain the services being made available through e-government to e-education in one shared-access

facilities. Providing “many” with “few” remains necessary in rural India. It is part of what the

Indian call Jugaad (frugal innovation).

5

2. Literature Review

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are commonly defined over the globe as

electronic, digital or technical means that provide users with information they can access, share and

store according to their preferences and needs (UNDP, 2001; Michiels and Van Crowder, 2001;

Chapman and Slaymaker, 2002; Heeks, 2002; Kramer, Jenkins and Katz, 2007; FOLDOC, 2008;

Unwin, 2009; ITU, 2012; TechTarget, 2014). Statistics can be used in order to measure the

information society looks like pertinent in order to situate the level of advancement of a country; in

other words, effectively determining whether it is developed or developing (ITU, 2007; ITU, 2009;

United Nations, 2009; ITU, 2013; WEF, 2014; WorldBank, 2014).

Kramer, Jenkins and Katz (2007) underlined the role of the ICT sector in expanding economic

opportunity. ICT is built on the basis of 4 dimensions which form the 4C’s framework (Bracey and

Culver, 2005; Tongia, 2006; Makitla and al, 2010): computing, communication, content and

capacity. Kling (1999) argues that Internet use is not only related to technological access

(computing, communication and content), but also related to social skills (human capacity). Heeks

mentions that the economic, social and political life of the 21st century will be mostly dominated by

the digital world and will subsequently exclude people without ICT access (Heeks, 2008, p. 26,

cited by Makitla and al, 2010).

The situation of India is depicted by most of the authors and organizations of the literature review

who work on the topic of ICT in rural India. Most of them underline the important economic growth

in the country for over two decades with its export-oriented software and ICT-based services sector.

Nonetheless, they remark the fact that India still stands far behind on the human development index

(Census of India, 2001; Baskaran and Muchie, 2006; HDR, 2008; Subramanian and Arivanandan,

2009; Walsham, 2010; Census of India, 2011; Sreekumar, 2011; Mukerji, 2013; HDR, 2014;

UNDP, 2014; WorldBank, 2014). It is essentially the socio-economic nature of the significant

differences between urban and rural areas in India (urban-rural divide) that raises interest for

understanding the impact ICT could bring in rural India through the private and for-profit models;

in concrete terms, this would provide underprivileged populations with access to information and

drive development of their own communities.

6

The Oxford dictionary (Oxford University Press 1989) define the word ‘urban’ as “relating to a city

or town” and the word ‘rural’ as “relating to the countryside rather than the town”. In the “United

Nations (UN) World Urbanization Prospects (WUP), The 2014 revision” (UN 2014) it is claimed

that “national statistical offices are in the best position to establish the most appropriate criteria to

characterize urban areas in their respective countries” and ‘rural population’ is associated to the

“difference between the total population and the urban population” and “refers to people living in

rural areas”. Based on the WUP, the World Bank (2014) mentions “urban population […] is

calculated using World Bank population estimates and urban ratios from the United Nations World

Urbanization Prospects” and “rural population […] is calculated as the difference between total

population and urban population.” Viktoria Hnatkovskaa and Amartya Lahiri (2013) described the

urban-rural divide by taking into account and studying between 1983 and 2010 four points they

considered relevant to understand the differences between urban and rural areas: the education

attainments levels, the occupation choices, the wages and the consumption expenditure of Indian

workers. Sneh Sangwan and Randhir Singh Sangwan (2003) focused their attention on the fact we

live in societies in transition with changing spatial pattern of social variables which can be assessed

through the evolution of the rural and urban society in India over time (Census of India 2001;

Government of India, 2006; Census of India 2011; Chandramouli, 2011; Government of India,

2013; WorldBank, 2014).

Chrisanthi Avgerou (2008) explained how emerging countries have attempted to get benefits from

ICT usage. She identified three discourses on IS implementation in developing countries (ISDC):

the transfer and diffusion discourse, the socially embeddedness discourse action and the

transformative discourse. Tripathi, Singh and Kumar (2012) depicted the impacts of ICT on

livelihood assets by categorizing them as human, natural, financial, social and physical assets. The

link between ICT growth and economic growth is explored by Maximo Torero, research fellow at

IFPRI, and Joachim von Braun, director general of IFPRI, who wrote a brief (2006) in order to

understand whether and how ICT could play a role in providing pro-poor services and fostering

their development even if many prerequisite must to be put in place. More precisely, Robert

Chapman and Tom Slaymaker (2002) investigated the potential role of ICT in rural development by

highlighting the constraints and opportunities faced to their application. In We the Peoples: A Un

for the Twenty-First Century (2000), the Former United Nations General-Secretary Kofi A. Annan

7

argues and confirms: “The information technology sector, in short, can transform many if not most

other sectors of economic and social activity” (p. 34).

The trend and pattern of growth of the ICT industry in India, such as the e-governance situation and

the teledensity variation across various Indian states, is more carefully analyzed by Varma and

Sasikumar (2004) who explain that “many studies have confirmed the positive pay offs of IT in

enhancing growth and development” (p.22), but that the “major impediment for ICT diffusion [in

India] is the lack of sufficient infrastructure” (p.32). Kurukshetra (Vol. 60, January 2012), a journal

on rural development, investigates the role of ICT in rural development of India through the

contribution of several authors: Gulati, Hazra, Kameswari, Sanyal and Raheem. Chitla (2012) as

well as Kumar and Singh (2012) wrote a paper to point out how ICT initiatives are capable of

development in rural India. More specifically, Makitla, Herselman, Botha and Van Greunen (2010)

published a paper on the mechanisms that facilitate delivery of digital content and services to

resource constrained communities through any access-technologies and devices available to the

end-users.

However, the key of success for ICT4D in rural India is to succeed first in bridging the digital

divide (Wade, 2002; Baskaran and Muchie as editors, 2006; TechTarget, 2014), which can be

structured into 4 levers (Bracey and Culver 2005; Tongia 2006; Makitla and al, 2010): awareness,

availability, access and affordability. Rao (2005) explained the digital divide arising from the use of

ICTs that occurs in India by discussing different aspects of Indian infrastructures such as electric

networks, IT, internet penetration and teledensity. He enlightened that the urban-rural divide could

partially explain the digital divide. However, he also pointed out that some Indian states are more

digital than others and there are caste, gender, educated–uneducated and rich–poor divides that

could also justify the “national digital divide“. The relationship between the digital divide and the

urban-rural divide is also considered by Mathews (2001) who showed in urban areas there is a

heavy concentration of ICTs, while in rural areas people cruelly lack access to ICTs which give rise

to development issues. More specifically, the internet’s impact on India, the challenges for building

a stronger internet ecosystem and the actions required to bridge critical gaps in the Internet

ecosystem were discussed in the report written by McKinsey & Company, Inc. (2012). Tongia,

Subrahmanian and Arunachalam (2005) also looked at the features of digital divide, the challenges

encountered in bridging it and the role ICT can play at answering Millenium Development Goals

8

and Targets from the Millennium Declaration signed by 189 countries (2000) for providing rural

development and bridging digital divide. In that sense, the World Telecommunication/ICT

Development Report (2010) from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) showed how

ICT can help achieve MDGs and the report prepared by Gilhooly (2002) for the United Nations ICT

Task Force in Support of the Science, Technology & Innovation Task Force of the United Nations

Millennium Project complements the literature on sustainable human development and poverty

eradication thanks to ICT.

The private and for-profit model (Kendall and Singh, 2006; Singh, 2006; Ariyabandu, 2009; World

Bank, 2009; Mukerji, 2013) is one of the platforms for ICT-enabled kiosks (also called

multipurpose telecentres or more commonly telecentres) in rural India. ICT-enabled kiosks are

share-access facilities providing services for low-income and socially disadvantaged communities

for strengthening their local development (Fillip and Foote, 2007; Ariyabandu, 2009; Liyanage,

2009; Mukerji; 2008; Mukerji, 2009; Unwin, 2009; Mukerji, 2013). These communities are more

commonly called the “Bottom of the Pyramid” (Prahalad and Hart, 2002 ; Kuriyan, Ray and

Toyama, 2008; Tarafdar and Singh, 2011) where there are market separations which can be mediate

by ICT through three actions: Automate, Informate and Transformate (Tarafdar and Singh, 2011).

ICT help in providing number of services which can empower rural areas. The typology of services

can be done through two types of categorization: type of operations and type of needs.

There are basically three main types of operations ICT can execute (Dossani, Misra and Jhaveri,

2004): informational services, transactional services and e-governance services. The other

subcategorization can be done by focusing on the needs ICT fulfils. Here below, several sections

dedicate to all of those areas which concern the needs and requirements in rural India with the

literature review associated:

1. Agriculture (Meera, Jhamtani and Rao, 2004; Prasad, 2005; Rivera, Qamar and

Mwandemere, 2005; Unwin, 2009; Qaisar, Ali khan, Mohd and Alam, 2011; Glendenning

and Ficarelli, 2012; Mittal, 2012, Kumar and Sankarakumar, 2012; Admane, 2014);

2. Education (IBM, 2005; Singh, 2006; Devi, Rizwaan and Chander, 2012; Roy, 2012; Von

Lautz-Cauzanet, 2012);

9

3. Healthcare (Prasad, 2004; Bagchi, 2006; Murthy, 2008; Bhaskaranarayana, Satyamurthy,

Remilla, Sethuraman and Rayappa, 2009; Tiwari, 2010; Mishra, Singh and Chand, 2012;

Ghia, Patil, Ved and Jha, 2013);

4. E-government services (Rao, 2004; Toyama, K., Kiri, K., Ratan, M. L., Nileshwar, A.,

Vedashree, R., and MacGregor, 2004; Malhotra, Chariar, Das and Ilavarasan, 2007;

Mukerji, 2008; Unwin, 2009; Upadhyaya and Chugan, 2012; Kumar and Kumar, 2013);

5. Financial and utility services (Paul, 2004; Toyama and al, 2004; Singh, 2006; Satchidananda

and Khanolkar, 2007; Ariyabandu; 2009; Mukerji, 2013;).

Findings of the case studies and the following discussion platform attempt to substantiate whether

or not the private and for-profit model can effectively drive development in rural India. The SWOT

analysis technique (Pahl and Richter, 2009; Team FME, 2013) is used to depict the strengths,

weaknesses, opportunities and threats of each of the three cases introduced, described and discussed

with help of secondary sources (see below) and primary sources (Baharul Islam, Maitrayee Mukerji,

Rajendra Kumar, Jai Asundi, Satyan Mishra and Tim Unwin, all of them interviewed in 2014):

1. ITC e-Choupal (Annamalai and Rao, 2003; Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003;

Chand, 2006; Singh and Khatri (eds.), 2008; Dangi and Singh, 2010; Walsham, 2010;

Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011; The DeSai Group, 2011; Tarafdar and Singh, 2011; Seas of

Change, 2012; Admane, 2014; Pant and Negi, 2014);

2. n-Logue (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001; Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and

Bandyopadhyay, 2004; Paul, 2004; Toyama, Kiri, Menon, Pal, Sethi and Srinivasan, 2005;

Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005; Best and Kumar, 2006; Kendall and Singh, 2006;

Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007; Ramachander, 2007; Steyn, 2010; Sreekumar, 2011)

3. Drishtee (Delgado, Eagle, Hasson and Sinha, 2002; Bhatnager, Dewan, Moreno Torres and

Kanungo; 2003; Toyama, Kiri, Menon, Pal, Sethi and Srinivasan, 2005; Parminder and

Deepika, 2008; Telecom LIVE, 2009; Mukerji, 2013; Drishtee.com, 2014).

Microsoft showed findings through a review of research on pc kiosks (2007) based on existing

literature review (Heeks, 2003; Keniston 2002; Toyama and al., 2005) and Toyama, Kiri, Menon,

Pal, Sethi and Srinivasan made observations based on quantitative results on rural pc kiosks in India

by taking into consideration n-Logue and Drishtee (2005). Sey and Fellows (2009) more especially

depicted the literature review on the impact of public access to ICT based on four types of

10

indicators (venue performance and sustainability, users, usage patterns and downstream impacts)

even though they concluded to limited and elusive evidence on downstream impacts of ICT on

development. Furthermore, Masiero (2011) discussed the relationship between the two underlying

dimensions of ICT-enabled kiosks: social and financial. Kuriyan, Ray and Toyama (2008)

enlightened the importance of private-public partnerships in order to address the “Bottom of the

Pyramid” by taking into account social and commercial goals at the same time.

Certainly, it is good to raise issues and challenges, but it is better to propose possible solutions.

Several authors and organizations made recommendations (Harris, Kumar and Balaji, 2003;

Badshah, Khan and Garrido, 2005; Garai and Shadrach, 2006; Kendall and Singh, 2006; Singh,

2006; Tongia and Subrahmanian, 2006; Fillip and Foote, 2007; Ariyabandu, 2009; Liyanage, 2009;

Singh (editor), 2009; Unwin, 2009; Sreekumar, 2011; WBCSD, 2012; Mukerji, 2013).

11

3. ICT in India

3.1 Introduction to Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

ICT is the means, either as softwarei or hardware

ii technology, for “creating, storing, processing,

disseminating and exchanging information” (Heeks, 2002; UNDP, 2001, cited by Mukerji, 2013).

The online TechTarget defines the different types of technologies ICT concerns, claiming that it

“[…] is an umbrella term that includes any communication device or application, encompassing:

radio, television, cellular phones, computer and network hardware and software, satellite systems

and so on, as well as the various services and applications associated with them, such as

videoconferencing and distance learning”. Tim Unwin (2009, p. 77) also adds, by citing Weigel and

Walburger (2004, p. 19), ICT is a used terminology to refer “to technologies to access, process and

transmit information […]”. These technologies can be separated into areas which are telephony,

broadcast media, and audio-visual processing and transmission systems (FOLDOC, 2008).

Michiels and Van Crowder (2001) defined ICTs “as a range of electronic technologies which when

converged in new configurations are flexible, adaptable, enabling and capable of transforming

organizations and redefining social relations”. They also mentioned the existing “convergence

between the new technologies and conventional media” (Michiels and Van Crowder, 2001, p. 8) so

that the new digital technologies can share and exchange information on different devices and

multiple media (cited by Chapman and Slaymaker, 2002, p. 1) thanks to the emergence of the

World Wide Web and the development and democratization of the digital technologies (Labelle,

2003, p. 1).

With the emergence of the internet and the related digitization of information towards the later part

of the 1980’s, the term ICT was first used by academics and researchers, increasing in popularity

with applications by modifying and mediating the relationship between men and machines. The ICT

revolution was launched, where Consumers-to-Consumers (C2C), Business-to-Consumers (B2C),

Government-to-Business (G2B), Business-to-Government (B2G), Business-to-Partners (B2P),

Partners-to-Business (P2B), Business-to-Enterprise (B2E), Government-to-Citizen (G2C) and

Citizen-to-Government (C2G) relationships are therefore facilitated (Baffour Kojo and Lu, 2003;

12

Malhotra, Chariar, Das and Ilavarasan, 2007; Mukerji, 2008; Schware, 2009; Chitla, 2012;

McKinsey & Company, Inc., 2012). Nowadays, ICTs are pervasive by nature and resulting

applications emerge in different organizations and processes progressively “leading to reduction of

processing time, lower transaction costs, lower inventory costs and less material” (Mody and

Dahlman, 1992, cited by Maitrayee Mukerji, 2013). It has become a pillar of the modern knowledge

society as ICT connects people together and provides e-services relying on improving the

information transfer (Kramer, Jenkins and Katz, 2007).

Furthermore, ICT can also been considered in terms of opportunities to ‘leapfrog’ technology

emerging and poor countries left behind use, in order to drive development and ‘catch-up’ the

developed countries (Mukerji, 2013). In this particular case, the term ‘ICT for Development’

(ICT4D) is more appropriately used. In that sense, many initiatives, notably the Global Knowledge

Initiative (founded in 1997), the UN ICT Task Force (established in 2000), the DOT-Force

(launched in 2000) and the World Summit on the Information Society (hosted by the International

Telecommunication Union in 2003 and 2005), have actively built “[…] partnerships between civil

society, the public and the private sectors to harness ICTs for development” (Chapman, Slaymaker

and Young, 2003, cited by Grimshaw and Kala (eds.), 2011, p. 2).

3.2 The 4C’s framework

ICTs can be studied and evaluated on the basis of a 4C’s framework (Bracey and Culver, 2005;

Tongia, Subrahmanian and Arunachalam, 2005):

1. Computing: Computers are expensive to acquire; this implies that shared access like

cybercafes or ICT-enabled kiosks, and mobile technology such mobile phones can be good

financial alternatives, especially in developing and emerging countries.

2. Connectivity: The mobile telephony and internet are increasingly used and available

everywhere over the globe, even if network coverage is, for the most part, limited to urban

areas and the data connectivity remains poor and expensive.

3. Content: Content does not exist in every language and information systems that provide

exhaustive content require multimedia which require broadband connectivity.

13

4. Capacity: Capacity refers to the ability for people to understand, use and maintain ICTs.

According to Kling (1999), they are user skills, in other words, skills that are related to

“professional knowledge, economic resources and technical use”. Governments play here an

important role by promoting ICT to people: children can already be educated to use them at

school.

Hardware or computing is becoming increasingly affordable and its price-performance ratio is also

quickly improving. Nonetheless, other aspects such as communication access and software use

prevent ICTs from becoming more cost effective and readily available to all populations. ICTs can

be a driver of performance and development as they facilitate the information access that provides

knowledge to users. For these reasons, investments in ICTs must absolutely be considered for

emerging and developing countries in order to build a Knowledge Economy, as it is obviously the

case in India for more than a decade now (Rao, 2005, p. 366). The economic, social and political

life in the 21st century will be mostly dominated by the digital world and will subsequently exclude

people without ICT access according to Heeks (2008, p. 26). Hence, Heeks (2008) and Unwin

(2009); these authors express the need to invest in ICTs by taking into account and innovating in

each aspect of the above-mentioned 4C’s framework, in order to deliver ICT access widely and

without exception.

3.3 Measuring ICT

ICT needs to be measured, in order to evaluate the situation of a community or a region regarding

their access to ICT and compare it with others. However, there are far too much data about ICT and

it is very difficult but necessary to find standardized data in order to make comparisons on same

scale. ICT-related and weighted sub-metrics are often used for measuring ICT, but very often they

are not applicable due to lack of data. Several initiatives can be referenced for measuring ICT as

follows (United Nations, 2009; ITU, 2014).

14

1. The World Economic Forum’s Networked Readiness Index1 (NRI): The NRI measures, on a

scale from 1 (worst) to 7 (best), the performance of 148 economies in leveraging information and

communications technologies to boost competitiveness and well-being (WEF, 2014; GITRiii

, 2014)

2. The ITU Digital Opportunity Index: The ITU-DOIiv is an e-index based on internationally-

agreed ICT indicators. This makes it a valuable tool for benchmarking the most important

indicators for measuring the Information Society. The Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) is based on

11 ICT indicators, grouped in 3 clusters: opportunity, infrastructure and utilization.

3. The ITU’s 2007 ICT Opportunity Index: The ICT-OI is an inclusive index and provides

measurement across 183 economies, relies on ten indicators that help measure ICT networks,

education and skills, uptake and intensity of the use of ICT (Figure 1). For analytical purposes,

economies are grouped into four categories, ranging from high to low ICT Opportunities. Apart

from cross-country comparisons, the index’s methodology highlights relative movements between

2001-2005. A comparison of annual average growth rates shows which countries are making

progress and how fast. (ITU, 2007)

1 India is ranked 83

d in 2014.

Figure 1 - Networked Readiness Index (WEF, 2014)

Figure 2 - Digital Opportunity Index (ITU, 2006)

15

4. The ICT Price Basket (IPB): The IPB combines fixed, mobile and broadband tariffs for 2008

into one measure and compares it across countries. (ITU, 2009)

5. The ICT Development Index (IDI) – formerly the ITU-OI: The IDI captures the level of

advancement of ICTs in more than 150 countries worldwide and compares progress made between

2002 and 2007. It also measures the global digital divide and examines how it has developed in

recent years (ITU, 2009).

I chose to focus a little more on the last Index, the ICT Development Index (IDI), and decompose it

in the case of India, for comparison with the rest of the world. You can find all the results from ITU

(2009) in the appendix of this work. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) introduced

the ICT Development Index (IDI) “[…] as an indicator of countries’ level of ICT development”,

more especially to “measure the digital divide between countries and assess countries’ ICT

Figure 3 - 2007 ICT Opportunity Index: sub-indices and indicators (ITU, 2007)

Figure 4 - IDI and ICT Price Basket comparison (ITU, 2009)

Figure 5 - Top ten economies - broadband Internet sub-basket (2008) (ITU, 2009)

16

development potential” (ITU, 2009; Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 18). The IDI considers several

indicators to measure the access to ICT and establish the index: 1. ICT readiness; 2. fixed

telephony; 3. mobile telephony; 4. international Internet bandwidth; 5. households with computers;

6. households with Internet. Developing countries have considerably improved the value of their

index this last decade compared the developed countries, largely owing to the huge success of

mobile telecommunications in developing countries (ITU, 2009; Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 18).

India did not really enhance its situation regarding the ICT Development Index (IDI): 118th in

2007, while in 2002, it was just one rank less. As we can see in the appendix, India has however

improved on the access sub-index (especially resulted from the significant mobile cellular

penetration from 1 to 20 per cent). Nevertheless, the country still encountered issues to improve the

bandwidth per Internet user, certainly due to the continued growth of the Indian population which

may in some ways mitigate the connectivity networks improvements. Similarly, there are low home

computer and Internet penetration rates. Finally, India has been better on all sub-indicators

regarding the skills sub-index (ITU, 2009, p. 28).

Figure 9 - IDI sub-indices by level of development (2002-2007) (ITU, 2007)

Figure 8 - Evolution of the digital

divide between IDI groups, 2002-2007 (ITU, 2007)

Figure 7 - Three stages in the

evolution towards an information society (ITU, 2009)

Figure 6 - ICT Development Index - Weighting of indicators (ITU, 2009)

17

Year 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012

GNI per capita, PPP (current international $) 2'040.0 2'420.0 3'260.0 4'100.0 5'080.0

Population, total 1'042'261'758.0 1'093'786'762.0 1'143'289'350.0 1'190'138'069.0 1'236'686'732.0

GDP (current US$) 476'609'148'165.2 618'356'467'437.0 949'116'769'619.6 1'365'372'433'341.3 1'858'744'737'180.5

GDP growth (annual %) 3.8 7.9 9.3 8.5 4.7

Life expectancy at birth, total (years) 62.2 63.3 64.5 65.4 66.2

Agriculture, value added (% of GDP) 23.0 20.7 18.3 17.7 17.5

Industry, value added (% of GDP) 26.0 26.0 28.8 27.8 26.2

Services, etc., value added (% of GDP) 51.0 53.2 52.9 54.5 56.3

3.4 Context of India

Before introducing ICT in India, it is first important and relevant to take into the political, the socio-

economic, the socio-cultural and the demographic context of India account, more especially the

features that play an important role in the way ICT can be used, accessed and afforded. In that

sense, I dedicate the following subsections to the discussion of the significant rural-urban divide of

India and about its caste, gender and state divides as well. The ICT situation and the resulting

digital divide in India are then investigated. Finally, we examine the evolution over time of the ICT

policy in India.

3.4.1 The country: some statistics

India is the second most populous country in the world with over 1.267 billion people in 2014.

About 45% of the population is less than 24 years old; the median age is 27 years old in 2014.2 The

Indian economy is the world’s tenth-largest by nominal GDP with 1,877 trillion US$v in 2013 and

the world’s third-largest by PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) with 6,777 trillion US$vi

in 2013.

However, the GDP per capita was only 1,499 US$vii

in 2013, so that the income level is considered

by the World Bank as lower-middle.

The country is divided into 29 States3 and 7 Union Territories. The population is multicultural,

multi-religious (mainly Hinduism at 80.5% and Islam at 13.4%)4 and multilingual (18 languages

officially recognized by the Government and 844 dialects)5.

2 http://www.indexmundi.com/india/demographics_profile.html

3 Andhra Pradesh was divided into two states, Telangana and a residual Andhra Pradesh on 2 June 2014

4 http://censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28dcgcku55jsqwk5aayrhold45%29%29/Census_And_You/religion.aspx

Figure 10 - Some statistics about India, 2000-2012 (World Bank, 2014)

http://www.indexmundi.com/india/demographics_profile.html

http://censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28dcgcku55jsqwk5aayrhold45%29%29/Census_And_You/religion.aspx

18

India encounters important economic growth since now more than two decades (over 8% per year

in the period 2004-2007)6 with its export-oriented software and ICT-based services sector.

However, even though India is today the world’s fourth largest economy in purchasing power parity

terms (PPP)v, India was ranked as 128

th out of 177 countries on the human development index,

which is a composite index based on life expectancy, literacy and education levels, and economic

standard of living, in 2005 (HDR, 2007) and 135th

out of 187 countries in 2013 (UNDP, 2014).

Human Development Index (HDI)viii

: “Shocking statistics include the percentage of malnourished

children under 5 being 46%, the adult female literacy rate as only 48%, and the percentage of the

rural population using adequate sanitary services as 18%” (World Bank, 2007, UNICEF, 2004,

cited by Walsham, 2010, pp. 1-2). Inequalities are particularly divided between urban and rural

areas, the urban-rural divide, which will be discussed in the following section.

1980 1990 2000 2005 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013 1980-1990 1990-2000 2000-2013

HDI rank Country

135 India 0.369 0.431 0.483 0.527 0.554 0.570 0.581 0.583 0.586 1.58 1.15 1.49

Human Development Index (HDI) Average annual HDI growth

Value (%)

Medium human development

Figure 11 - Human Development Index (HDI) (HDR, 2011)

India's telecom network has huge potential of development because of its high population (also in

terms of economies of scale for low-cost telecommunications) and the focus on ICT (institutional

focus on that by all types of agencies in India; the government, the state, the private sector, the Civil

Citizen Organizations, etc.). The economic success of India does, however, not benefit everybody in

India. As we above mentioned, there are inequalities related to socio-economic situation, especially

between urban and rural areas, but is just one of the numerous kind of inequalities: gender, castes,

education, state, etc. In that sense, plenty of ICT-enabled initiatives have been implemented

throughout the country since the 2000’s, in order to empower the poorest communities of the

country.

5 Fillip and Foot, 2007, p. 171

6 World Bank, 2007

19

3.4.2 Urban-rural divide

The Oxford dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1989) defined the word ‘urban’ as “relating to a

city or town” and ‘rural’ as “relating to the countryside rather than the town”. Overall, about 30% of

the Indian population lives in urban areas and 70% in rural areas (Census of India, 2011;

WorldBank, 2014). The majority of the population then lives in rural areas, where the poverty level

is higher and the literacy rate lower; literacy rate stands at 67% in rural areas compared to 84% in

urban areas (Census of India, 2011) and where agriculture is a way of life (India is the second

world's largest agricultural producer and employs about half of the active workers of the country)

even though it counts not more than 20% of total GDP (WorldBank, 2014).

Figure 12 – Urban/Rural population, 1951-2011 (World Bank, 2014)

Most of the time, it is commonly accepted that urban people generally work in the manufacturing

and services industry and rural people work in agriculture (India being the second largest

agricultural producer in the world in 2014).78

It is stated by United Nations that “national statistical

offices are in the best position to establish the most appropriate criteria to characterize urban areas

in their respective countries” (cited by Ledent, 2001, p. 106). Considering India, the definition of

urban area is the following one (Census of India, 2011, p. 12):

7 http://www.theindiaeconomyreview.org/Article.aspx?aid=26&mid=3

8 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/s-sivakumar/among-indias-rural-poor-f_b_4117991.html

http://www.theindiaeconomyreview.org/Article.aspx?aid=26&mid=3

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/s-sivakumar/among-indias-rural-poor-f_b_4117991.html

20

(a) All statutory places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area

committee, etc. (known as Statutory Town)

(b) All other places which satisfy the following criteria (known as Census Town) : a minimum

population of 5,000 ; at least 75 per cent of the male main workers engaged in non-agricultural

pursuits ; and a density of population of at least 400 per sq. km. (1,000 per sq. mile).

Therefore, all areas which are not categorized as Urban Area are considered as Rural Area.

(Census of India, 2011, p. 13)

In the working paper The Rural-Urban divide in India (Hnatkovskaa and Lahiri, 2013), the authors

describe the urban-rural divide by taking into four points account and studying them between 1983

and 2010 to understand the differences between urban and rural areas: the education attainments

levels, the occupation choices, the wages and the consumption expenditure of Indian workers.

According to Sneh Sangwan and Randhir Singh Sangwan (2003, p. 19), “rural-urban differences get

revealed in occupation, environment, size of community, density of population, heterogeneity,

social differentiation, mobility and system of social interaction”. They also focused their attention

on the fact we live in societies in transition, so that even in India “rural-urban differences are

essentially a function of the differential rates of change occurring in towns and villages”: changing

spatial pattern of social variables.

However, the report of the World Urbanization Prospects, the 2014 Revision (United Nations,

2014, p. 4), states that “the urban definition employed by national statistical offices varies widely

across countries, and in some cases has changed over time within a country”. On the same page of

this report (Ibid.), it is more precisely explained what criteria can be used in order to define the

concept of urban area:

The criteria for classifying an area as urban may be based on one or a combination of

characteristics, such as: a minimum population threshold; population density; proportion

employed in non-agricultural sectors; the presence of infrastructure such as paved roads,

electricity, piped water or sewers; and the presence of education or health services.

Even though there are global efforts to produce uniform criteria based on satellite imagery for

instance, it is very difficult to make comparisons due to the heterogeneity of the urban definition

21

across countries of the world. China and India are two good examples that fully illustrate that kind

of problem: rural settlements do not feature any of the typical characteristics of urban areas, but

have large numbers of inhabitants, that is often more than 5,000 people (WUP, 2004).

The term ‘rural’ is widely used because there is not really a shared definition. It is more related to

remote areas where there are only spare house holdings in villages. Distinction between ‘rural’ and

‘urban’, however, remains arbitrary related to the evolution of socio-economic flows over time.

Migration (from rural to urban areas) and rural development (by enhanced quality of life) modify

what is categorized as ‘rural’ over time. Education, healthcare and lifeways constitute the main

flows of the evolution that can occur.

Megan Reed, research coordinator at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (University of

Pennsylvania) depicted the existing urban-rural divide in India as follows: “On the one hand sit

urban metropolises like Mumbai and Bangalore, whose cosmopolitan citizens rail against corrupt

politicians, fetishise growth and care little for parochial concerns, like caste. On the other hand sits

India’s vast rural hinterlands, where caste dictates social relations and corruption takes a backseat to

basic sustenance.”9

In rural India, several features can be gathered to depict the situation: the level of education is low

(literacy rates were around 60 percent according to Census 201110

) and there are still serious

problems of nutrition, healthcare and sanitation (infant mortality rate remains high in rural India,

even though it went down the last two decades; see figures 11 and 12). See below, on figure 10, the

evolution of the average IMR over time from 1995 to 2013 between rural and urban areas.

Year 199511

20059

201312

India Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban

Average IMR 80 48 64 40 44 27

Figure 13 -Average IMR between rural and urban areas, 1995, 2005 and 2013

(author)

9 http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/04/03/india-elections-the-ruralurban-divide-dies-out/

10 Census of India, 2001.

11 Government of India, Mortality Statistics in India, p. 67

12 Government of India, Sample Registration System. Registrar General, India. Volume 49, no. 1, September 2014, p. 1

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/04/03/india-elections-the-ruralurban-divide-dies-out/

22

Figure 14 - Under five and infant mortality indicators, 2005

(Government of India, 2006)

Variable 2000 2005 2010

Rural poverty headcount ratio at national poverty lines (% of rural population) 41.8 33.8

Rural poverty gap at national poverty lines (%) 9.2 6.8

Rural population growth (annual %) 1.4 1.0 0.8

Rural population (% of total population) 72.3 70.8 69.1

Improved water source, rural (% of rural population with access) 76.1 82.2 88.3

Improved sanitation facilities, rural (% of rural population with access) 14.4 18.7 23.0

Access to electricity, rural (% of population) 48.1 66.9

Figure 15 - World Development Indicators (World Bank, 2014)

Rural India essentially depends on agricultural sector, whose growth national rate is around 2-3

percent compared to tertiary sector which is growing at higher rates around 10 percent. However,

the cost of agriculture increases and there is generally poor land management for different reasons

(partly due to agrochemical use; with Monsanto for instance). Many farmers consequently commit

suicide and since the growth in rural India is far less high than in urban India, several millions

people emigrate for employment opportunities and better life, but as they have low skills they get

very low wages and live in bad conditions13

.

13

http://www.drishtee.com/


23

There results from that fact a migration from rural to urban for searching employment opportunities

and better life conditions (Prasad, 2007, pp. 117-118). Rural to urban migration is particularly a

phenomenon that mainly concerns the poor and backward States of India where there is large

population mobility (Mitra and Murayama, 2008). They show that the intrastate migration is more

important than the interstate migration as socio-cultural aspects differ between States very much.

Interestingly, they operate a decomposition of what constitute urban growth: natural increase;

population of new towns or less declassified towns; increase due to expansion in urban areas and

merging of towns; and net migration (Kundu, 2006).

3.4.3 Other divides: castes, gender and states

In rural India, women are conveniently processed but suffer from all sorts of rules that exclude them

from social life. Thus, they are designed to work indoors and are totally dependent on men.

CASTES

The caste system is a stratification of the Indian society based on two concepts: varnaix

(symbolizing social rank) and jatix (symbolizing castes and sub-castes). These two concepts are

Figure 16 - Agriculture, Industry and Services in India,

2000-2013 (World Bank, 2014)

24

related in the sense each Indian is born with a social rank arising from its caste (Singh, 2005; Singh,

2008; Ahmad, 2010). It is the British Empire that decided to segregate Indians as a means of social

control, in order to allocate the population to administrative roles or subordinated roles. The caste

system has been divided and hierarchized into five classes (included the out of class

‘untouchables’). By order of social rank, there are Brahmins (the priest and academics), Kshatriyas

(the warriors and kings), Vaishyas (merchants, landowners, farmers and artisans), Shudras (servants

and subordinated to the upper classes) and Harijan14

(untouchables and subordinated to all the upper

classes). By the past, untouchables were considered as impure, so that they were excluded from the

society. After the independence of the country in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi enforced the movement

for social inclusion of the untouchables. Therefore, a positive caste-based discrimination of jobs and

other initiatives for the backward classes of India (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other

Backward Castes) have been over time formalized by the central government and state

governments. All these public interventions were and still are necessary to protect and improve the

socioeconomic conditions of the lower and backward castes of the Indian Society, because the caste

system still exists today in India (Singh, 2005; Ahmad, 2010).

Negative caste-based discrimination continues as well, even though social position and wealth are

less associated with caste thanks to the public policies put in place. Especially the caste system is

still very present and traditionally respected in rural India compared to urban areas where for

instance inter-caste marriages are more and more frequently and socially accepted. (Sekhon, 2000;

Ahmad, 2010) As it is discussed later in this work, ICTs have been envisioned as tools to empower

the marginalized communities and strengthen their livelihoods. Taking the socio-cultural aspect of

the caste system in India into account, especially very present in rural India, the critical and related

issues encountered with the private and for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks will be also slightly

pointed out and discussed.

GENDER DIVIDE

The access to knowledge and education for females in India has been historically very restricted till

the middle of the 18th

century when the British Empire colonized India. The reason behind was that

India was ruled by Muslim dynasties with low consideration for the female status. Under the British

14

Title given by Mahatma Gandhi who envisioned an Indian society inclusive

25

Empire, women’s rights get better and particularly in 1947, when India became independent, the

education system opens up to the girls, as the government took the decision to provide education to

all Indian females (Kumar and Sangeeta, 2013). Therefore, it impacted on their gender literacy rate,

which was at that time consequently much lower than the male literacy rate in India. Here below

you can see the evolution of the gender literacy rates last century; the female literacy rate being still

far lower than the male literacy rate:

Year 2001 2006

Literacy rate, adult female (% of females ages 15 and above) 47.8 50.8

Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above) 73.4 75.2 Figure 17 - Literacy rate, gender, 2001-2006 (World Bank, 2014)

Resulting from this starting situation, it is therefore more difficult for women to apply for a job

(because of persistent gender discrimination, which still even exists nowadays in developed

countries) and there are less women at top positions as they are quantitatively less to be literate in

India compared to men. Nevertheless, in cities, more and more women start to take good positions

and they are more women reaching higher education. These positive signals do not however bode

well: rural India is always very traditional as it remained cut off the outside world because of lack

of infrastructure like transportation networks, overhead power lines, telephone lines, connectivity,

etc. With the emergence and implement of the information and communication technologies in the

emerging countries since the 1980-1990’s, rural India has been kind of ignored area, except that

ICT initiatives have been implemented to bridge the increasing digital divide since 1990’s, not

between emerging countries and developed countries that time but between rural and urban areas. It

is especially there that inequalities are indeed stronger.

Therefore, it is interesting to approach the question of ICT4D in the following way: Do they

positively discriminate women by empowerment initiatives for instance? We will see it is rarely the

case ICT4D to change existing and contextual socio-cultural features of conservative rural India,

but rural initiatives, not necessarily focusing on ICT as an “end” but as an “enabler” or just a

“complement”, can in a certain sense lead to woman empowerment like it is the case with a

franchising business solution of the private and franchise company called Drishtee: the woman

health franchisee15

.

15

http://www.drishtee.com/strategic-solutions/health/


26

STATE DIVIDE

The Indian Population Census 2011 investigated different variables. I decided to take into account

the following ones: state, population, areas, literacy rate, IMR, percentage of phone users,

percentage of computer users, percentage of computer with internet users, percentage of landline

phones and percentage of mobile phones. All the data have been picked up from a website on IMR

and literacy rates (Government of India, 2011) and from a website on computer and mobile phone

users state wise (Updateox.com, 2012). I have adapted the content from the data of this website

(from Census 2011) and organized them in categories; each time I kept the literacy variable and the

percentage of population in each area (urban vs. rural) as references for comparisons. I finally

decided to put states in different colors according to their level of science and technology

development (S&T index) for 21 states (Bhattacharya and Graham, 2008, p. 26).

1. The most advanced states (scores above 0.70; green): Delhi, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and

Andhra Pradesh16

;

2. The more advanced states (scores between 0.42 and 0.70; yellow): Maharashtra, Karnataka,

Gujarat, Uttaranchal and Punjab;

3. Less advanced states (scores between 0.16 and 0.42; orange): West Bengal, Assam,

Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh;

4. Bottom of the S&T Index (scores less than 0.16; red): Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand,

Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

16

Andhra Pradesh was divided into two states, Telangana and a residual Andhra Pradesh on 2 June 2014.

Figure 18 - Level of S&T, 2004-2005 (Bhattacharya and Graham, 2008)

27

Results show that most of advanced countries are those which have a higher average literate rate

among their state population (exception: Andhra Pradesh), while most of the least advanced states

are those with lower literate rate. The same phenomenon can be observed regarding the percentage

of phone users in the different states: those with a higher S&T have a higher base of phone users in

their state. Similar observations and convergences are also done with the following variables:

percentage of computers with internet users and percentage of landline phones. They are all both

positively correlated with the fact their State is considered as an advanced State. Moreover, I

decided to see if there was any relationship between IMR and S&T Index. I found out there was, but

that Andhra Pradesh once again was an exception. While Goa (IMR = 11), Kerala (IMR = 12) and

Tamil Nadu (IMR = 22) had far lower IMR than the average IMR for the country (IMR = 44),

Andhra Pradesh has just more or less the average IMR of India (43).

Access to assets like TVs, computers, telephones, Internet and cable services and mobile phones

can help to define the level of welfare (Bhattacharya and Graham, 2008, p. 27). Once again, here

we can see the top two advanced group of countries we defined before have a higher level of

welfare compared to the bottom two other groups.

Figure 19 - Household ownership of selected goods and services, 2004-2005

28

3.4.4 The resulting digital divide

Mita Bhattacharya and Graham Vickery (2008) wrote a report on the performance, growth and the

key challenges of the ICT sector in India. Their work confirmed that even though India benefits

from a huge high-skilled manpower in ICT and the hardware and electronics segment has started to

pick up, a big part of the Indian population is still illiterate, IT awareness is always low, R&D

spending should be increased for benefiting both the IT services and hardware, content creation and

data availability should increase for benefiting the private sector and the public sector (through e-

governance) and finally better evaluations should be pursued in order to set up good practice in

policy design and delivery. The huge challenge of ICT in India certainly results from the urban-

rural divide and its underlying socio-economic features, previously depicted, which make there

exists a consecutive and significant digital divide between urban and rural areas.

The digital divide is an inequality related to access to, use of and knowledge of ICTs by people and

“[…] is related to social inclusion and equality of opportunity” (Bhatt, 2006, p. 33). This divide can

be the symptom of other divides as it indirectly and reciprocally engenders a differential treatment

between citizens or areas according the fact they are in different socioeconomic, sociocultural or

even demographic categories (Tongia, Subrahmanian and Arunachalam, 2005).

In that sense, it can be depicted into several forms as the TechTarget online dictionary17

(accessed

the 10th

November, 2014) shows:

The digital divide typically exists between those in cities and those in rural areas; between

the educated and the uneducated; between socioeconomic groups; and, globally, between

the more and less industrially developed nations. Even among populations with some access

to technology, the digital divide can be evident in the form of lower-performance computers,

lower-speed wireless connections, lower-priced connections such as dial-up, and limited

access to subscription-based content.

Similarly, the dichotomy ‘technology haves’ and ‘technology have-nots’ is often used to refer “[…]

to the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and

17

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digital-divide


29

communications technology, and those that don't or have restricted access.”18

Before the 1990's,

digital divide was rather measured regarding the telephone access, while since the emergence of

Internet it is essentially the Internet access, particularly broadband, which serves as analysis

criterion. (TechTarget, 2014)

However, according to what is said in the Markle Foundation’s Report (2003) on National

Strategies of ICT for Development, “Digital Divides are not just the result of economic differences

in access to technologies (Have’s vs. Have-Not’s), but also in cultural capacity and political will to

apply these technologies for development impact (Do’s vs. Do-Not’s)” (cited by Bracey & Culver,

pp. 144-145). It means the digital divide is also shaped with social and cultural norms, and that

policy and the way ICT is implemented (business model) play an important role.

IDENTIFYING DIGITAL DIVIDE

There are 4 main aspects that basically feature the digital divide and enable to understand its

underlying reasons (Bracey and Culver, 200; Tongia, Subrahmanian and Arunachalam, 2005;

Unwin, 2009):

1. Awareness of technology: It is important to understand how ICT can be used and what can

be exactly done with technology as long as people are not reluctant to it in their attitude.

2. Penetration and availability (reach of infrastructures): ICTs are not available to everybody

everywhere. Infrastructure (power supply, telecom and connectivity) is necessary to take

into consideration as it directly impacts other drivers such as accessibility and affordability.

3. Accessibility (access to services and appliances): It is related to the ability to use and

consume the content ICT provide, both lingual and technical. Because of institutional and

infrastructural lacks, rural and remote areas have varying information and communication

needs that are not satisfied. It is first essential to identify and understand these needs

regarding their area of concern and next comes up the question how ICT could fulfill them

through their use.

4. Affordability: All ICT costs must be affordable for people and not exceed a certain threshold

comparatively with their revenue to be generated (not more than 10% of one’s income).

Otherwise, their impact will be negligible and not sustainable. They include life-cycle costs

18



30

(called total costs of ownership – TCO), hardware, software, connectivity, etc. They are a

function of pricing and business model (Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 18).

Telecommunications policy generally uses the concept “Universal Service” when it is possible for a

service to be accessible, available and affordable. It is only the case in developed countries or in

developed urban areas of emerging countries where every individual or household can privately use

ICT at home or through wireless devices. Contrariwise, telecommunications policy uses another

concept “Universal Access”, which aims at expanding the access to ICT at remote communities,

often for the first time. It is typically the case in rural areas of emerging countries where access to

ICT is especially community, public or shared accessed.

Figure 20 - Universal acces vs. Universal service (Barrett and Slavova, 2011)

Michael Barrett and Mira Slavova (2011, pp. 17-18), respectively Professor of Information Systems

& Innovation Studies at Cambridge and ICT Researcher at Leeds, distinguish more precisely the

three different kind of access that cause the inequality related to accessibility and availability of ICT

between developed and developing countries or urban and rural people like in our scope of interest:

1. Access to services consists to:

a. the ready availability of content (resources), fulfilling users’ roles as citizens,

producers, and consumers (Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 17);

b. the ready availability (to those who are not experts in the technology) of network

access and appropriate support services through commercial vendors (Barrett and

Slavova, 2011, p. 17);

c. the availability of formal and informal learning facilities for developing network

literacy (Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 18);

31

d. and the ready availability of channels through which individual users can participate

in decisions about telecommunications services, their social inclusiveness, and the

public accountability of their provision (Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 18).

2. Access to appliances is:

captured by the physical layer of ICT hardware devices and the logical layer of software

tools on these devices. With its twofold (hardware and software) nature, access to ICT

appliances links the supply of ICT infrastructure with the provision of services targeted at

end users (Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 18).

3. Access to infrastructures or carriage facilities layer is:

a physical technology layer consisting of installed network capacity, network connectivity,

and interoperability standards (Barrett and Slavova, 2011, p. 18).

Figure 21 - Access to services, appliances and infrastructure (Barrett and Slavova, 2011)

UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL DIVIDE

First, it is important to remind, even though we conclude to clear disparities in the way Indian

people have access to ICTs comparatively to where they live (urban versus rural area), the digital

divide is not always related to the urban-rural divide studied and there exist other divides that can

also explain the digital divide such as the “gender divide”, the “states divide”, and finally the

“educated–uneducated“ and the “rich–poor” divides in urban areas (Rao, 2005, pp. 363-364; Bist,

2007, p. 703). Nevertheless, the target of this work is only to focus on the digital divide between the

urban ‘technology haves’ and the rural ‘technology have-nots’.

32

Moreover, most of the time, the digital divide refers to the global digital divide or technological gap

between developed and developing countries. However, the digital divide can also refer to the

national digital divide throughout a country. Pairs of segments can differentiate individuals of a

same nation. For example, the digital divide can be considered between men and women, literate

and illiterate, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, young and old people, etc. Additionally, the

digital divide can be attributed to geographic divides such as between political areas, or more

precisely between developed and developing areas (Rao, 2005). At the same time, gender,

educational, economic and geographic divides are correlated to inequalities related to developed

and developing areas within a country (urban-rural) (Prasad, 2004).

If I take again the framework of the four main reasons identifying the digital divide, I could explain

the difficulties encountered in rural areas compared to urban areas:

1. the level of openness in using ICT and awareness in their potential is very low in rural and

remote areas (awareness),

2. there is a lack of accessibility to the facilities because of remoteness and low economic

attractiveness for the connectivity providers compared to cities (availability),

3. the level of needs that should be satisfied is very high because of remoteness and lack of

availability of service providers and adequate content (accessibility),

4. and the capacity to pay for devices and use is very low compared to urban areas where

population is on average much richer (affordability)

Important reasons that make there exists the digital divide between urban and rural areas in India is

that rural areas are missing electric infrastructures and internet services necessary to support ICTs.

This phenomenon, mainly caused by geographic remoteness, little concentration of population and

low funding for ICT installations, limits the information access and the communication possibilities

for rural people. For instance, in many rural places it is frequent to be confronted to power outages,

while in urban places people get use of well-maintained electrical service and have facilitated and

fast information access as well as new technology with easy reach. Moreover, due to remote and

with limited access locations, rural people have not always reliable access to the internet, while

urban people rarely encounter issues to be connected to the internet. There is a lack of base

infrastructure in other words. As results, teledensity is very low in rural India (see next figures) and

fewer are the users of personal/individual digital devices (see appendix). Moreover, there is low

33

bandwidth and remoteness of certain locations raise barriers of reliability and availability to

universal access to ICT (Baffour Kojo and Lu, 2003).

Therefore, if we have a look at the teledensityxi

in India, which is the number of telephone

connections (telephone lines or mobile cellular subscribers) for one hundred people living within

the same area, we get that in rural areas teledensity equals 42.67% in 2013 compared to 74.02% for

whole India (TRAI, 2014). Rural teledensity in India has more than quadrupled since 2007.

In 2004, India still had a very low teledensity compared to the World if we look at the table below.

Since that time, rural teledensity in India spectacularly grew to 42.67% in 2013 from 1.7% in 2004.

At the moment, it is even growing faster than urban teledensity. The same phenomenon is observed

regarding the number of connections: 282.29 million rural connections in 2011 (most of which are

wireless), compared to 4.84 million (only landline) phones in 2000. It is largely due to the

expansion of mobile telephony the private sector contributed to. Alternatives to mobile phones even

exist: Public Calling Offices and Village Public Telephones are available in almost every inhabited

census village in the country (Gulati, 2011, pp. 3-4).

Figure 22 - Tele-density (rural/urban)

1999-2006 (Bhattacharya and Vickery, 2008)

Figure 23 – Rural/urban teledensity (Subramanian and Arivanandan, 2009)

Figure 24 - Status of telecom indicators, 2005 (Bhattacharya and Vickery, 2008)

34

Knowing that the population of India is over 1.2 billion people in 2014, it is quite interesting to

know, however, that still only about 120 million people have for instance access to internet, which

gives a very low penetration rate of 10% if we compare with developed countries that have

penetration rates of internet close to 75% as it is the case in Europe. Therefore, India is dramatically

an exception in Asia where the average internet user rate is about 35%, instead of 10% in India as

above-mentioned (International Telecommunication Union, 2013).

The level of literacy and the ability to use ICT systems (computer literacy or e-literacy) are two

other critical factors that positively impact awareness and in turn increase adoption of ICT

(Grimshaw and Kala, 2011). Those people who can use computers have better chance to be

empowered by the services provided in different areas and to become regular users. Although India

has more than 200 universities mainly concentrated in urban areas, illiteracy always stays a big

problem (Mathews, 2001).

This is very clear to note differences between urban and rural areas, taking into consideration the

gender, which is of huge importance in India regarding discrimination (Census of India, 2001;

Census of India, 2011).

In 2001, the male literacy rate was 71% in rural areas versus 86% in urban areas and the

female literacy rate was 46% in rural areas versus 73% in urban areas.

In 2011, the male literacy rate was 78% in rural areas versus 89% in urban areas and the

female literacy rate was 58% in rural areas versus 79% in urban areas.

When talking about the age pyramid, it is also interesting to point out differences: Young people

have today a facilitated access to education compared to their parents (World Bank, 2014).

In 2001, the male literacy rate ages 15 and above was 73% versus 84% ages 15-24 and the

female literacy rate ages 15 and above was 48% versus 68% ages 15-24;

In 2006, the male literacy rate ages 15 and above was 75% versus 88% ages 15-24 and the

female literacy rate ages 15 and above was 51% versus 74% ages 15-24.

We can then note that the female literacy rate is the one which has the more increased over time,

especially in rural areas with a 12 percentage point increase from 2001 to 2011, but more precisely

for the females literacy rate ages 15-24, where it is a 6 percentage point increase from 2001 to 2006.

35

Moreover, it is very interesting to note for the female literacy rate there is each time between 20-30

percent increase whether it is in rural versus urban areas, or ages 15 and above versus ages 15-24.

Furthermore, the fact that there are 18 languages officially recognized in India does not help people

to get access to knowledge shared by ICTs as there does not exist exhaustive knowledge on the

internet for each language. According to an infographic from Smartling, there was still around 40%

Internet world’s content in English in 2000 (compared to 80% in 1996).

Even though the dominance of English dropped with the growth of the non-English population in

the middle of 2000’s, English internet content remained high with around 25% in 2011. (Becker,

2007, p. 1188; Techinasia19

, 2012) As we can see on the infographic, very few of the Internet

world’s content is in languages recognized by India while about 10% of the world’s population

come from rural India. Therefore, there still exist critical issues for rural India where people are

disadvantaged as unable to find adequate content in their own native language or dialect if they

want to access the Internet. It is called the language divide. (Rao, 2005, p. 364)

19

https://www.techinasia.com/dominant-languages-on-internet-english-chinese/

Figure 25 - Internet world's content (Techinasia, 2012)

https://www.techinasia.com/dominant-languages-on-internet-english-chinese/

36

4. Bridging digital divide and driving development

As we previously pointed out, rural areas of India lag behind urban areas as they do not have the

infrastructure available, accessible, and affordable enough to provide access to and use of and

knowledge of information and communication technologies. In that sense, there is a social

inequality between urban and rural areas that is called digital divide. Subsequently, rural India is

somehow excluded and marginalized from the socio-economic development of India. Bridging the

digital divide is a first step necessary to overcome before trying to drive development through ICT.

Since the 2000's, there has been a huge international debate on the impact ICT could have on the

productivity and the growth. Most of the results and conclusions which emerged from that debate

converged to admit there was a positive effect resulting from ICT, so that it could be an interesting

driver for developing country. The others, more skeptical, summarized their position as follows:

“you can’t eat computers” (Steinberg, 2003, cited by Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 1). Indeed, for

developed countries, where critical infrastructures and institutions existed, studies found out

positive productivity impacts of ICT at the micro-level and aggregate level, while for developing

countries, especially BOP markets where infrastructure were poor and institutions were weak

(Tarafdar and Singh, 2011), there was still low evidence. However, Kendall and Singh (2006, p. 1)

admitted: “Nevertheless, there are many situations where IT can deliver real benefits and cost

savings either as an alternative, or as a complement to physical infrastructure development.” In that

sense, ICTs were considered by many as an “inherently enabling metatechnology that [could]

bypass or leapfrog institutional and infrastructural obstacles” (Wade, 2002, p. 460).

Tripathi, Singh and Kumar (2012, p. 825) defined five livelihood assets which ICT could impact:

1. Human capital: Enhanced access to education though distance-learning applications and

tools and more adapted and appropriate services for local communities (regarding their

language and culture).

2. Natural capital: Updated natural resource records such as land, cool etc. and appropriate

decision making thanks to facilitated communication with stakeholders (state, landowners,

etc.).

37

3. Financial capital: Established banking in rural areas such as loans and savings schemes

through micro-credit initiatives.

4. Social capital: Facilitated networking with a much wider community impact and with cost

and time reduction for social networking goals and employment opportunities.

5. Physical capital: privileged access to markets and market information (supply and demand)

for improved decision making.

Figure 26 - Livelihood assets (Tripathi, Singh and Kumar, 2012)

ICT access and use can help villagers to shape their attitudes of change in actions in the sense the

information and knowledge they can acquire through ICT-enabled services can in some ways

enable them to take better decisions and to make more efficient actions in their activities. As long as

economic and social resources or capabilities are provided, they can “interpret information into

usable knowledge”. It finally leads to empowerment and opportunities in that case. Thus, ICT

access and capabilities can be considered as fundamental steps in the Knowledge Economy (Tongia,

2006, p. 4).

ICTs can therefore empower rural and remote areas by leading them to rural development. As a

result, rural communities acquire independence and capacity to improve their living conditions and

level of development (Balit, 1998). The possibilities ICTs provide in connecting people and sharing

information between them has even completely turned the rural development into a new paradigm:

the transition from a traditional society to a knowledge society (Meera, Jhamtani and Rao, 2004).

38

Indian villages have today the opportunity to get connected to the whole country by broadband and

internet telephony (Voice over Internet Protocol – VoIP).

The trend and pattern of growth of the ICT industry in India, such as for instance the numerous e-

governance initiatives which emerged and the positive teledensity variation across states of India, is

however more carefully analyzed by Varma and Sasikumar (2004) who explain that “many studies

have confirmed the positive pay offs of IT in enhancing growth and development” (p.22), but that

the “major impediment for ICT diffusion [in India] is the lack of sufficient infrastructure” (p.32).

As explained in Making ICT infrastructure, appliances, and services more accessible and

affordable in rural areas (Barrett and Slavova, 2011), ICTs have definitely played a positive impact

on income growth in developing countries (Röller and Waverman, 2001; Waverman, Meschi, and

Fuss, 2005; cited by Barrett and Slavova, 2011). ICTs generate new income channels and increase

the quality of life in rural areas (Goyal 2010; Jensen 2007, cited by Barrett and Slavova, 2011).

Therefore wider access to and bigger use of ICTs throughout India should certainly reduce

inequalities in income and quality of life between rural and urban areas (Barrett and Slavova, 2011).

4.1 How to bridge digital divide?

There are challenges and opportunities to bridge the digital divide in India, in the sense it could

reduce the gaps or inequalities between the “haves” from urban areas and the “have–nots” from

rural areas, in order to access ICT. Filling up the existing digital divide we explored in the previous

section needs measures of change in the 4Cs Framework to be considered. Moreover, the ICT

policy is very important and should be considered as well. Therefore, it constitutes the fifth point of

this section.

4.1.1 Computing

As rural people are very poor, it is necessary to develop technology cheap enough and effective at

the same time in order to make rural access to ICT possible and robust. An individual and low cost

solution (personal mobile phone) compared to an individual and unaffordable cost solution

39

(personal PC) is more and more frequent in rural India, while a collective solution of sharing access

and use of ICT (ICT-enabled kiosk) could be helpful and useful for people with low financial

affordability and for huge number of unreached people to serve. Frugal innovation is required in

hardware and software, in order to make the computing as simple and affordable as possible and as

adequate as possible, too (Tongia, Subrahmanian and Arunachalam, 2005).

4.1.2 Connectivity

As access to the internet and the telecommunications remains a huge challenge in rural India since

the rural villages are geographically dispersed, low populated, remote and poor, the connectivity is

essential to provide value over time. Frugal innovation could here help as well by providing

affordable and efficient connectivity systems adapted to the context of rural India. As we previously

said, literacy is still a huge challenge in rural areas and the solution to encounter it is multimedia, so

that broadband connectivity is needed. Terrestrial wireless and satellite technologies are

connectivity technology options that can be applied to facilitate ICT access in rural and remote

areas as they do not require wireline networks. The big advantage with satellite technologies is this

solution can be easily and rapidly implemented and the network coverage can then be remote and

reach isolated areas, while wireline technologies are very difficult and long to be widely extended.

Finally, this is to remind connectivity is more than connecting to the internet; it also concerns

interconnected systems like sensors and connected appliances like tv, radio, etc. (Ibid.; Rao, 2005).

4.1.3 Content

The local content and languages should be available to users. The content provided through e-

services should help to empower rural people and facilitate the emergence of user communities.

Relevant content is necessary in order to address adequately the needs and requirements of ICT

users and it depends on the capacity of the ICT designer to customize the content solutions

according to the context in which they are locally used. Some features impact the contextual nature

of the content such as the location, the culture, the language, etc. (Ballantyne, 2002, cited by

Glendenning and Ficarelli, 2012). Other features concern more the typology of the service

40

provided: e-agriculture, e-health, e-education, e-government and other online or offline services can

help to bridge the access to information and communication in their related field, as long as they are

consistent, value-added and consequently used by the community (Tongia, Subrahmanian and

Arunachalam, 2005)

4.1.4 Capacity

It is essential to educate people of rural India about ICT. When starting any ICT initiative, the first

step is to raise awareness around it; make that people know about the nature of the technology you

are providing them and the potential it can deliver. They especially have to get in mind what will be

the implications for them and how the ICT solution would be able to answer their needs and

requirements. However, it not that easy to make people understand how the value propositions of

services delivered by ICT could help them in their activities and hobbies (Baffour Kojo and Lu,

2003). E-literacy programmes can offer opportunities to villagers to acquire skills by the use of

digital technologies such as information and computer literacy, information reading, handling and

interpretation skills, etc. which can subsequently be of help since they can support users to become

e-literate enough to get information and knowledge, so that they will finally be empowered. In these

programmes, the Government has a major role to play in fostering empowerment of the rural citizen

through e-governance. Many initiatives from states like Andhra Pradesh with the e-governance

initiative Mee Seva for instance, where e-government services are provided by the State to its

citizen, have emerged the last century for empowering the civil society living in rural and remote

areas (Tongia, Subrahmanian and Arunachalam, 2005).

4.1.5 ICT policy

The first electronic computer arrived in India in 1955. It is at that time that the Committee on

Electronics was initiated (August 1963) and that India thereafter really started its first IT policy in

the 1970's with the provision intent of imported hardware for software exporters to be facilitated

(Bhattacharya and Graham, 2008, p. 9; Heeks, 1996, p. 42, Mukerji, 2013, p. 34). The policies

during the 1970s and the 1980s especially focused on development of domestic software and

41

hardware industries by restricting with high tariffs competitiveness and growth: Import tariffs were

high (135% on hardware and 100% on software) (Dossani, 2006, cited by Bhattacharya and

Graham, 2008, p. 9).

The Government of India played a key role in the sense it became a facilitator of the IT industry

instead of just being a regulator of IT goods and services (Evans, 1992; Heeks, 1996, p. 50, cited by

Mukerji, p. 34). Therefore, the Government of India facilitated provision of private investments (IT

sector and physical infrastructure), increased human capacity (focus on computer science in the

school system for manpower development), and computerized its administration and tax incentives.

The National Taskforce on Information Technology and Software Development (NTITSD) was at

that time established (1998) in order to establish long-term plans for driving growth in the IT sector

by enabling the private sector to be in a good position to become competitive internationally on the

software market (Bhattacharya and Graham, 2008). Competitive advantages targeted technically

qualified talents, speaking English, with low-labour costs and more competitive work conditions.

There resulted from these public actions growth of the software industry on total GDP of the

country and increased employment opportunities in the sector, even though the domestic economy

did not directly benefit from the value creation as the sector was essentially working as international

software outsourcer and therefore exported the value created outside India (Mukerji, 2013). On

Figure 16 (% value-added per sector on total GDP), section 3.4.2, you see how the services sector

(mostly impacted by the software industry) is still growing compared to the rest of the economy

since now more than one decade at constant around 10% percent growth rate per year.

However, the flip side of these generous facilitations and incentives to the private sector to invest

and set up software firms in India resulted in “[…] short-run manpower deficit in the other sectors”

and the public sector had invest too much energy and funding in doing that, it couldn’t help other

sectors of the economy by investing once again in resources and capabilities. This is certainly the

reason why the industry has never really grown up in terms of value-added on total GDP of the

county compared to another emerging country, China, with some similar features (more than 1

billion people) but with a more important value-added industry sector.

ICT policy in India has also been declined in the states of the country with diverse outcomes: Some

states did succeed to benefit from the ICT policies, while others did not really benefit from the

42

situation. Nevertheless, differences between urban and rural areas remained and even increased as

the ICT investments from the private sector were carried out in urban areas since there was

infrastructure and institutions there. Therefore, the focus of the government ICT policies did not

consider IT for rural development at that time, except maybe concerning some states, like Kerala

for instance, which pursued own state policies for empowering their rural population in some areas

like health, education, e-governance, etc. (Mukerji, 2013)

In 2000, the Ministry of Information Technology has been finally created and a Task Force on

Human Resource Development has been asked for thinking at “[...] long-term strategies to increase

the number of well-trained IT professionals.” (Bhattacharya and Graham, 2008, p. 9) Moreover, the

Education and Research Network (ERNET) has been implemented to connect universities and

regional engineering colleges (RECs), in order to decrease still more IT-related customs duties and

to make possible 100%; it resulted to the Information Technology Act, 2000 (Ibid.)

As the Government of India realized the digital divide it was creating between urban and rural areas

with huge ICT sector development and resulting socio-economic impacts in urban areas compared

to the low ICT penetration, access and use in rural areas, it decided to create the Working Group on

Information Technology for Masses, in order to consider how ICT could be used to empower rural

India, so that ICT would reach all parts of the country. There resulted from it the creation of a

comprehensive policy framework, whose one goal was precisely to achieve `IT for All´ with wider

diffusion and universal access to ICT (Baskaran and Muchie, (eds.), 2006)

Figure 27 - From push to pull strategies (ICTlogy, 2008)

43

4.2 ICT for Development (ICT4D) vs. ICT and Development (ICT-D)

There is a difference between ICT4D and ICT-D, as they depict two perspectives that Maitrayee

Mukerji (2013) calls the dominant perspective and the critical perspective. The first perspective

considers the transformational and diffusional role ICT can play, while the second perspective

considers more the multidimensional impacts of ICT in developing societies (Sreekumar, 2011;

Mukerji, 2013).

It is important to understand the link between ICT and development in terms of socioeconomic

outcomes but also in terms of agencies implied, their policies initiated and initiatives implemented.

While the dominant perspective only sees the provision of technology as solution to rural issues, the

critical perspective enlightens the importance of the agenda and policies while bridging digital

divide and driving development with the support of ICT (Mukerji, 2013).

4.2.1 ICT4D

This perspective has been mainly envisioned by international and development organizations as

being ICT implementation with development goals in emerging countries. It has been driven by the

“[…] liberalization of telecommunication, privatization of public service delivery, and

informationalization”. (Mukerji, 2013, p. 16) They have seen the resulting digital divide from the

uneven diffusion and access to ICT between developed and undeveloped countries as an

international goal to achieve. It is certainly the first Global Knowledge Conference, whose a

worldwide network emerged (called the Global Knowledge Partnership) in 1997 in Toronto,

(OECD, 2003, P. 7, cited by Mukerji, p. 16) that launched the perspective ICT could achieve

sustainable and equitable development. Development reports from the World Bank and the United

Nations Development Programme also played an important role in putting forward ICT for

development.

ICTs are considered as means for development in emerging and poor countries because they can

participate as an alternative in the social, political and economic knowledge society. Secretary-

General Kofi Annan stated in his Millennium Report (United Nations, 2001, cited by Kendall and

44

Singh, 2006, p. 1): “New technology offers an unprecedented chance for developing countries to

`leapfrog´ earlier stages of development. Everything must be done to maximize their peoples' access

to new information networks”. The Millennium Declaration (United Nations, 2000), adopted by 189

members of the UN in 2000, set up 8 Millennium Development Goals (see Appendix for more

details) “[…] for improving the existence of many and for saving the lives of those threatened by

disease and hunger” by 2015:

1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. To achieve universal primary education

3. To promote gender equality and empower women

4. To reduce child mortality

5. To improve maternal health

6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

7. To ensure environmental sustainability

8. To develop a global partnership for development

In the Millennium report (United Nations, 2000), it is clearly stated ICT can be envisioned as means

for developing communication and information exchange over the globe overcoming different

issues related to socioeconomic differences:

The information technology sector, in short, can transform many if not most other sectors of

economic and social activity [...] This is not to say that the transition will be easy for

developing countries, especially the very poor. Lack of resources and skills is part of the

problem, inadequate basic infrastructure another, illiteracy and language a third, and, of

course, there are concerns about privacy and content. Technical solutions will become

available for many of these problems, including wireless access, and even simple automatic

translation programmes, enabling us to communicate and engage in e-commerce across

language barriers. (United Nations, 2000, p. 34)

Therefore, ICT was considered in the beginning of the 2000’s as kind of perfect solution to struggle

socioeconomic problems related to the lack of infrastructures, institutions, content and skills in low

socioeconomic and remote areas of the world. It was also mentioned how the individual mode of

information and communication consumption could be overcome in emerging countries through

shared-access facilities:

45

[...] Public telecentres have been established in places from Peru to Kazakhstan. In Egypt,

for example, the United Nations Development Programme has helped to create Technology

Access Community Centers to bring the Internet and fax service to poor and rural areas.

With help from civil society organizations and the private sector, we can expand these pilot

programmes to reach even the remotest corners of the globe. (UN, 2000, pp. 33-34)

4.2.2 ICT-D

This perspective has appeared as an interdisciplinary approach to reconsider the hype of success

ICT4D proponents envisioned for empowering rural communities. The idea behind this critical

discourse was to get a multidimensional understanding of the “[…] impacts of ICT diffusion,

resistance and acceptance in developing societies challenging varying presumptions of ICT4D.”

(Sreekumar and Rivera Sanchez, 2008, cited by Sreekumar, 2011, p. 6) Hence, ICT-D considers the

way the different types of agencies set up ICT4D, from the elaboration and application of policies

to the implementation and evaluation of initiative. It approaches ICT with the objective to facilitate

technology appropriation by the communities (Mukerji, 2013).

Due to lack of access to ICT in low socio-economic areas, the ICT4D discourse creates kind of

“information poverty” since they consider as much important providing information and

communication to marginalized communities as providing them with the basic necessities and

livelihoods (Wade, 2002; Wilson, 2003; cited by Mukerji, 2013, p. 24). Hence, the digital divide

has been translated into issues of development which could be resolved by ICT4D, so that the

supply side of technology (technology and service providers) was considered instead of the demand

side (beneficiaries). Therefore, it is more the question of provision of technology which is

considered and not the question of development needs and requirements (Mukerji, 2013).

The problem with ICT4D is that most of the time they are too much programmatic, technocratic and

instrumental in nature and forget to address the problem in nature (Sreekumar, 2011; Mukerji,

2013). The ICT4D initiatives that have been launched during the beginning of the 2000’s were too

much optimistic, thinking all issues of development and problems of poverty were going to get

solved because of the potential of ICTs (Wade, 2002, cited by Mukerji, 2013, p. 25). When they

46

failed, the protagonists generally did not try to understand the reasons of the failure and invoked

they were exclusively related to “demand-side constraints like culture, political will, community

participation etc.” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 25)

Therefore, in order to understand the real impact any ICT initiative can have on development, it is

critical to not only focus on the results and impacts, but rather on the mechanisms involved: “[…]

assemblage of agencies, their agenda, policies and programmes.” (Ibid) In the critical perspective,

ICT is therefore not perceived as “end” but as “enabler”, which cannot by itself empower the

marginalized communities if they don’t have “[…] the capabilities and resources available to

harness this potential.” (Ibid)

5. The private and for-profit ICT-enabled kiosks

5.1 Definition of ICT-enabled kiosks

ICT-enabled kiosks (also called multipurpose telecenters or MPTC) are “[…] facilities that provide

shared and mediated access to technologies for socio-economic development” (Mukerji, 2013, p.

28). The access-shared facilities in emerging and poor countries, particularly in remote and rural

areas, provide a full range of support services to a specific and disadvantaged group of people

(called the “Bottom of the Pyramid”) for developing their local community with socio-economic

purposes (Fillip and Foote, 2007; Ariyabandu, 2009; Liyanage, 2009; Mukerji, 2009; Unwin, 2009).

They are based on a set of information and communication technologies as follows: hardwares

(computers, printing and scanning equipment, telemedicine equipment), softwares, internet

connection, etc. Over time, several models emerged with different names but based on the same

design as ICT-enabled kiosks: cyber café, multipurpose centers, pc kiosks, mobile Internet units,

community multimedia centers, technology centers, village knowledge centers, telehuts, etc.

(Ariyabandu, 2009; Fillip and Foote, 2007; Liyanage, 2009; UN, 2009). People can use them as

community, learning, technology and business centers at the same time (Fillip and Foote, 2007, p.

1) so that they become a “knowledge hub”: “[…] vibrant centre which is accessible to communities

47

to gain, share and organize knowledge depending on their needs and environment […] [and] acts as

an intermediary station between the community and knowledge network” (Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 4)

These shared-access facilities provide fee-based or free-of-charge services, depending on the social

and/or business goals resulting from the business model of the operator. There can be several

criteria to distinguish them (as cited by Mukerji, 2013, p. 39):

a) number and type of technologies deployed (Jensen, 2001; Oestmann and Dymond, 2001)

b) nature of the agency orchestrating the network – non-government, government and private

(Sarkar, 2003; Sood, 2003)

c) ownership of individual kiosk – private enterprise or public organization, community or

NGO (Proenza, 2001; Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005)

d) basic purpose – developmental or commercial (Proenza, 2001)

e) functional orientation – profit or non-profit partnership

f) location – developing or developed countries (Oestman and Dymond, 2001, p. 3) and urban

or rural areas (Harris, 2001)

g) usability – thematic service relating to one specific area or multiple service offerings

(Harris, 2001; Sood, 2003)

As rural areas severely lack of critical facilities to answer their community needs, ICT-enabled

kiosks can serve as platforms for information access, training and knowledge sharing and

empowerment. Therefore, their primary goal is to improve the wellbeing of the community by

increasing the information access though different areas, which primarily concern rural areas, and

drive rural development: agriculture, education, healthcare and other crucial aspects. However, their

function is not only to transmit knowledge, but also to serve as a place of interaction between the

community members to share the knowledge acquired (Unwin, 2009).

5.2 ICT-enabled kiosks: emergence and evolution of the movement

The ICT revolution started in 1985 (Sreekumar, 2011, p. 2), in Europe and North America with the

“telecottage” or “community technology center” movement in order to overcome the remoteness

and isolation of rural areas where people have low purchasing power and undeveloped

48

telecommunication infrastructures (Fillip and Foote, 2007, p. 8; Mukerji, 2008, pp. 2-3;

Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 1; Liyanage, 2009, pp. 12-13). At that time, telecenters were considered as

shared public facilities where people could access and use information and communication

technologies (Colle and Roman, 1991, p. 1; Proenza, 2002, cited by Mukerji, 2008, p. 2).

During the 1990’s, the “period of telecentre evolution” (also called “telecentre 1.0”), ICT

initiatives started to offer ICT shared-access and connectivity to the public at large scale, especially

to middle and low-income housekeepers, developing countries and rural areas with no availability

of ICT infrastructures (Fillip and Foote, 2007; p. 8). They were generally implemented as pilot

initiatives by civil society organizations or NGOs with the support of donor agencies and

governments. The idea behind implementing these shared-access facilities in emerging countries,

more precisely in remote and rural areas, was to target marginalized communities (the “Bottom of

the Pyramid”) for bridging digital divide and empowering their local community (Ariyabandu,

2009, p. 1; Liyanage, 2009, pp. 12-13). Telecenters were henceforth considered as shared public

facilities where low socioeconomic communities could obtain information and communication

services they could not get individually for socio-economic interests (Colle and Roman, 2001, p.3,

cited by Mukerji, 2008, p. 2).

In the end of 1990s and in the 2000’s, the “telecentre movement” (also called “telecentre 2.0” or

“telecentre ecosystem”) made scale (Mukerji, 2008, p. 3, Liyanage, 2009, p. 13). The lesson learnt

was that “[…] the provision of technology per se will not bring about any change unless and until

they fulfil a definite need of the people and are complemented by supporting physical and social

infrastructure” (Mukerji, 2008, p. 2). The usability of the shared-access facilities also improved

from essentially basic services (printing, browsing, emailing, etc.) to more specific areas of concern

for the people (e-agriculture, e-education, e-health, e-governance, etc.). As mentioned Maitrayee

Mukerji (2008, p. 2), another specific layer which counted in that “telecenters movement” was

certainly the role mediated as intermediary by the kiosk operator between the technology and the

people “[…] to overcome barriers of low levels of literacy and skills”.

Moreover, the promise in the early 2000’s that ICT could achieve Millennium Development Goals

(ICT4D) and benefit everybody everywhere (bridging digital divide) convinced major technology

companies in the ICT industry such as Microsoft Corporation, Intel and AMD to consider the

49

marginalized and disadvantaged (the “Bottom of the Pyramid”) by “[…] conducting market

research on this segment, building diverse philanthropic programs, and creating alliances with civil

society organizations and national governments around the world” (Liyanage, 2009, p. 14). This

promise could be depicted by the emergence of the private and “[…] profit-seeking ICT for

development (ICT4D) industry, which tended to collaborate with public or nonprofit partners, but

engaged the private sector as the driving force” (Liyanage, 2009, p. 13).

There result of the “telecentre movement” period, the conviction while “universal service” was not

possible to provide to everybody on the planet, “universal access” was through shared-access the

best way at reaching the most of underserved people possible (Mukerji, 2008, p. 3; Fillip and Foote,

2007; p. 8). Maitrayee Mukerji also pointed out that “[…] the emergence of certain supply side and

demand side factors at global and national levels” resulting from the “telecentre movement”

(Mukerji, 2008, p. 8):

Supply side factors are primarily the “push” factors of a) rapid technological innovations

related to satellite and wireless technologies, convergence of digital media, Internet and the

World Wide Web (Oestmann and Dymond, 2001, p.2, cited by Mukerji, 2008, p. 8) and b)

the need of the emerging computer and Internet industry to expand their market (Dagrón,

2002; Ya’u, 2002, cited by Mukerki, 2008, p. 3).

The demand or the “market pull” factors is driven by the hope that information technology

will change the nature of interaction in the public sphere with the possibilities of online

democracy, participation, digital empowerment and equity just as it has brought about

revolutionary changes manufacturing and business processes (Mukerji,2008, p. 3)

This period has been characterized by growth and diversification of the types of telecentre models

which have been implemented by development organizations, NGOs and private organizations

(Fillip and Foote, 2007). According to telecentre.orgxii

, by 2007, there were approximately 60,000

government-, community-, and entrepreneur-run telecenters worldwide, respectively over 15,00020

in India at that time (Fillip and Foote, 2007, p. 9). This particular matter opened up questions

regarding their sustainability which are covered in the discussion section of this work with a focus

on the private and for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks.

20

telecentre.org, 2006a. This count does not include cybercafés, which are defined as privately owned, primarily urban

establishments providing limited services, such as emailing and browsing (cited by Fillip and Foote, 2007, p. 19)

50

5.3 ICT-enabled kiosks: the movement in India

In India, the provision and deployment of telecentres has followed different development phases

from the 1990’s until the 2000’s. Since their creation, telecentres have essentially been

implemented to target rural areas as the poorest socio-economic groups of India, counting for one

seventh of the world’s population, live there and suffer from digital divide essentially due to “[…]

differential adoption of the Internet facility […]” (Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 2)

In 1992, M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) organized an interesting dialogue on

the benefits of ICT in sharing and spreading knowledge for rural development, more especially for

sustainable agriculture (Vasanth and Senthilkumaran, n.d., cited by Mukerji, 2008, p. 4).

Nevertheless, as reported by Albrechtsen (Albrechtsen, 1987, cited by Sreekumar, 2011, p. 4): “[…]

the first telecentres in India did not appear until the late 1990s.” At the beginning, their deployment

was initiated by public policies and conducted by development agencies such as NGO’s, Civil

Society Organizations (CSOs) and public sector, with different motivations according their goals

pursued (Sreekumar, 2011, p. 4).

The phenomenon of village cyberkiosks appeared at that time “[…] to be identified as a major form

of development experiment involving the deployment of ICTs for social and economic

transformation in rural India” (Sreekumar, 2011, p. 5). In 1998, MSSRF developed the two first

Information Villages in Pondicherry (Tamil Nadu) in partnership with the International

Development Research Centre (Mukerji, 2008, p. 4), in order to provide telecommunications

infrastructures for enabling the dissemination and sharing of appropriate content related to

agriculture, education, health, weather, job opportunities, government, etc. (Subramanian and

Arivanandan, 2009, p. 108). Another similar project called the Warana Wired Village Project

(Maharashtra) was implemented at the same period in 70 villages “[...] on the recommendation of

the Prime Minister’s task force on IT to demonstrate the use of new technologies for integrated rural

development”. Several pilots including Gyandoot (Madhya Pradesh), SARIxiii

(Tamil Nadu) and

Tarahaat (Bundelkhand and Punjab) were also implemented in the very beginning of the 2000’s

(Mukerji, 2008, p. 4; Mukerji, 2013, p. 36). Since these projects were pilots, sustainability was not

taken into account: “[…] affordability, adaptation and adaptation of technologies in rural settings

51

were the key concerns” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 37). As mentioned by Mukerji (2013, p.37), only

government’s projects in partnership with the private sector (PPP) through franchisees survived like

Akshaya (Kerala) for instance. This latter exclusively provided e-governance services (with initial

e-literacy programme) at that time; now it is also operating B2C and C2B services depending on the

services supply choices of the kiosk entrepreneurs (Masiero, 2011). However, in the case of

Akshaya, 200 out of 630 original centers had already closed by the end of 2006 (Kuriyan, Ray and

Toyama, 2008, p. 99).

During the 2000’s, the private sector finally entered the game. Particularly, during the “telecentre

movement”, country-level and private organizations like Drishtee, n-Logue and ITC e-Choupal

implemented and developed ICT-enabled kiosks as network orchestrators for “[…] earning profits

by targeting “Bottom of the Pyramid” communities” (Liyanage, 2009, p. 14). Both Drishtee and n-

Logue previously had experienced implementation of ICT-enabled kiosks: “Drishtee was involved

with Gyandoot, while n-Logue was the technology provider for SARI project” (Mukerji, 2013, p.

37). Concerning ITC e-Choupal, the goal was to become globally competitive by building up a

supply chain network for commodities from the farmers in rural India (Srinivasan, 2007; Kumar,

2005, cited by Mukerji, 2013, p. 37). Within this period, the kiosk design and implementation has

been highly considered: “[issues like entrepreneurship, sustainability of kiosks, user fees, basket of

services, process and product innovations became [the] key concerns […]” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 37).

In that sense, hardware and software providers worked for “[…] prototyping products [for markets]

characterized by infrastructural constraints and low levels of literacy (Schwittay, 2008, cited by

Mukerji, 2013, p. 37).

In the second half of the 2000’s, more precisely in 2007, a new phase called “Mission 2007”, a

multi-stakeholder initiative (Mukerji, 2013), has been implemented under the National e-

Governance Plan (NeGP). It was formulated by the Department of Electronics and Information

Technology (DeitY) for delivering services in a socially inclusive manner to the disadvantaged

communities of rural India (Parminder (editor), 2009, p. 1). The Government of India envisioned to

allocate “[...] around Rs. 5,742 crore for setting up one-lakh (1,00,000) Common Service Centers

(CSCs) under its National e-Governance Plan” (Mukerji, 2008, p. 4). Previous state-led telecentre

initiatives of e-governance services merged with that led-government CSC scheme (Singh (editor),

2009, p. 4; Mukerji, 2013, p. 38). The services provided by the CSCs are the following ones:

52

Government to Citizen Services (G2C), Business to Citizen Services (B2C), financial inclusion

services, educational services, digital literacy programmes, skills development programmes and

agricultural services (Shadrach and Sharma, 2013, pp. 12-13). In January 2009, there were already

22,000 CSCs implemented and “the states of Haryana, Jharkhand and Sikkim had completed their

CSC roll out” (Gulati, 2009, p. 5). In 2013, there were still more throughout the whole country:

over 95,000 CSCs had been rolled out (Kumar, Kumar and Kumar, 2013, p. 34). As on 31st of

March, 133,847 CSCs had been rolled out. 21

However, the impacts remain not satisfying: limited

utilization of the CSCs due to lack of e-governance services availability (Gulati, 2009, p. 5; Singh

(editor), 2009, p. 4; Shadrach and Sharma, 2013, p. 21).

Maitrayee Mukerji pointed out a very important factor regarding the telecentres both in her book

(2013) and during my interview with her (December 2014): It is very hard to estimate how many

telecenters are still operating in rural India nowadays and whether they have high user frequency or

not. A report from ITU in 2013 stated that “India has more functional telecentres than the rest of the

world combined” (Shadrach and Sharma, 2013, p. 2): 99,000 plus CSCs and tens and thousands of

privately-run shared-access facilities.

5.4 Separations at the “Bottom of the Pyramid”

The “Bottom of Pyramid” consumers’ situation/market is described in the book The Fortune at the

Bottom of the Pyramid (Prahalad and Hart, 2002, p. 2) exactly as follows:

1. Most Tier 4 people live in rural villages, or urban slums and shantytowns, and they usually

do not held legal title or deed to their assets (e.g., dwelling. farms, businesses).

2. They have little or no formal education and are hard to reach via conventional distribution,

credit, and communications.

3. The quality and quantity of products and services available in Tier 4 is generally low.

The above-mentioned facts can explain why it is tough for BOP producers to enter the bottom

market and target customers: it is subsequently “[…] difficult to identify, connect with, and market

their products to, potential customers (Karsani, 2007, cited by Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p. 1).”

21

http://csc.gov.in/

http://csc.gov.in/

53

More precisely, BOP consumers can be defined as the largest but poorest or lower-income socio-

economic group over the globe, living mostly in Africa, Asia and South America (Hammond and al,

2007, cited by Tarafdar and Singh, 2011). They “[…] are characterized by poor infrastructure,

information asymmetries and weak institutions (Viswanathan et al, 2009), hence are poorly

developed.” (Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p. 6)

BOP includes around 4 billion people who cannot afford more than US $1,500 a year. More

alarmingly, over a billion people (one sixth of the world population) sustain on less than US $1 a

day. Moreover, it is interesting to underline the tremendous income divide between the rich and

poor: the richest 20% obtained about 70% of total income in 1960, while the same richest

percentage of people accounted for 85% of total income in 2000. Even though the “Bottom of the

Pyramid” is often considered as a non-viable market because of low affordability (Karnani, 2007,

cited by Tarafdar and Singh, 2011), it constitutes the majority of the world population and a

multitrillion-dollar informal and local market as well. The World Bank even predicts the BOP

population will count over 6 billion people by 2040. (Prahalad and Hart, 2002, p. 2)

According to Prahalad and Hart, the “Bottom of the Pyramid” market depends on four intertwined

factors which impact the development of its commercial infrastructure. Nevertheless, it is “[…] a

resource- and management-intensive task”, for the reason that “few local entrepreneurs have the

managerial or technological resources to create this infrastructure” (Prahalad and Hart, 2002, p. 11).

Figure 28 - The commercial infrastructure at the BOP (Ruohonen and al (eds.), 2012)

Moreover, it remains complicated to enter and develop the BOP market for the following reasons

(cited by Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p.2)

54

1. Remote location of BOP communities making physical distribution of goods costly (Vachani

and Smith, 2008);

2. BOP individuals having low and uncertain incomes (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002);

3. and the presence of “informal” low markets having exploitatitve intermediaries with

asymmetrical information access (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002).

According to Bartel’s theory of market separations (Bartels, 1968, cited by Tarafdar and Singh,

2011, pp. 4-9), there are four separations which are binding in the case of the “Bottom of the

Pyramid” 4, as in the case of rural India, they hinder all kind of services or product exchanges:

1. Spatial separation relates to the geographical distance (given remote, dispersed and

difficult-to-access places because of poor transportation facilities available);

2. Temporal separation relates to the time difference (given poor information access);

3. Informational separation relates to informational asymmetry (given low literacy rate and

lack of access to information sources);

4. Financial separation relates to difference between willingness and affordability of

consumers to purchase what they want (given low skills levels).

Research showed “[…] how ICT can shape and facilitate information processing and transactions

among entities (i.e. individuals, departments and organizations) […]” and can then play an

important role by bridging the four market separations between marketers and customers (e.g.

Zuboff, 1988; Armstrong and Sambamurthy, 1999; Weill, 1992, all cited by Tarafdar and Singh,

2011, p. 4):

1. Automate role relates to the computerization of the information for improving its access,

speed and accuracy and for reducing its cost.

Figure 29 - The World Economic Pyramid (Prahalad and Hart, 2002)

55

2. Informate role relates to the information itself which enhance decision making.

3. Transform role relates to the transformation which occurs in the way the processes and

relationships happen with new forms of information exchange coming from ICT (by

reducing the transaction costs as pointed out by Nirvikar Singh, 2004).

Based on three research propositions, Tarafdar and Singh (2011, pp. 4-5) “[…] suggest that

particular [socio-economic] conditions at the BOP aggravate the four market separations [-

Proposition 1-], that the roles of ICT can mitigate the separations [-Proposition 2-], and that

reduction of these separations can lead to market development at the BOP marked by increased

consumption and exchange [-Proposition 3-].”

Proposition 1 is verified by “[…] inadequate access to education, skills, finances and information

(Hammond et al., 2007; Viswanathan and Rosa, 2007, cited by Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p.5),

which make BOP constituents economically vulnerable (Narayan et al. 2000; Karnani, 2007, cited

by Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p. 5).

Proposition 2 is verified by substituting information flow for physical flow of materials (spatial

separation and temporal separation), by speeding-up information flows and processes (temporal

separation), by making available information (information separation), (Tarafdar and Singh, 2011,

p. 6).

Proposition 3 is verified by “[…] greater spatial, temporal and informational proximity […] and

thus leads to increased exchange in BOP markets.” (Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p. 6)

Figure 30 - Research Propositions (Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p. 5)

56

Therefore, the conclusion is that ICT can alleviate the spatial, temporal, informational and financial

separations resulting from the conditions at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” by helping to drive

development in that market. Chrisanthi Avgerou (2008) explained that literature on information

systems for developing countries more generally considers telecenters as belonging to the transfer

and diffusion discourse, even though some authors would classify them into the transformative

discourse because of overcoming social and political conditions such as extreme poverty and

bureaucratic obstacles (Bailur, 2007). C.K. Prahalad, Professor in Corporate Strategy at the

University of Michigan, agreed with the last position in the foreword of the book Making the

Connection: Scaling telecenters for development the challenge of bridging digital divide for the

people at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” so that they can access Internet and participate to the

knowledge society, can be more especially answered by “[...] the creation of ways for the poor to

have shared access to information and communication technologies (ICT)” (cited by Fillip & Foote,

2007, foreword I).

In that sense the perspective of ICT-enabled kiosks offers new opportunities for targeting this low-

income market by providing them services at affordable price. The model of “entrepreneurship-

through-development” for the “Bottom of the Pyramid” “[...] assumes that market-based solutions,

private enterprise, and advanced technologies can increase the well-being of the poor and

concurrently increase the profits of the private sector [so that] bridging the digital divide [through

these principles] is thus seen as a huge opportunity for development” (Kuriyan, Ray and Toyama,

2008, p. 101). In other words, this model argues that “[...] if the poor are treated as consumers, this

will lead to positive development outcomes through the generation of opportunity and of wealth”

(Hart, 2005, cited by Kuriyan, Ray and Toyama, 2008, p. 101). Nevertheless, the difficulty remains

high regarding the context of the market targeted as it is explained later on in the section Discussion

of this work: bringing BOP people out of poverty while being affordable and profitable enough to

continue to develop and sustain business in that market is not an easy task.

57

5.5 The private model

The private or the commercial model is based on a private organization which operates as a network

orchestrator (Mukerji, 2013, p. 49) of knowledge hubs (Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 4), instead of having a

NGO or the Government as orchestrator of the knowledge network.

Each ICT-enabled kiosk can then be considered as an independent information and development

node (called knowledge hub) within the knowledge network with “[...] a flexible structure to

generate and share information” (Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 2). They “[…] serve the community. […]

[and] contribute to creating knowledge by providing experience gained from the local communities

to the benefit of the global networks at large” (ESCAP 2006, cited by Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 4).

Figure 31 - Telecentre/ICT-enabled kiosks network model (Liyanage, 2009, p. 147)

Nirvikar Singh, Professor of Social Sciences at the University of California, explained that “in the

absence of commercial goals, the organization’s incentive structure is unlikely to be financially

sustainable without continual external infusions of support” (2006, pp. 20-21). The private and for-

profit model is, according to Singh, required whether a business model wants to achieve scalability

and sustainability (Singh, 2006). In that sense, the Millennium Development Goal number eight

targeted participation of the private sector in 2000 to “[…] make available the benefits of new

technologies-especially information and communication technologies” (Fillip and Foote, 2009, p.

11). There are two main models resulting from the private model approach: the corporate model and

the franchise model.

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5.5.1 The corporate model

A large company can afford a corporate-led venture model (also called private-led franchise model)

of ICT-enabled kiosks with direct investments (World Bank, 2009, p. 25; Mukerji, 2013, p. 50).

The social goals of implementing these shared-access facilities in rural areas meet the mission and

value of the orchestrating organization (Singh, 2006, p. 22). The scope of operation of such a model

is then related to the scope of economic interest for the corporation; it is why this model is generally

limitedly scaled in rural India, or focuses only on “[…] areas that have significant economic

activity.” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 50)

Singh underlined that it is not necessarily the whole company which is involved in the project, but

just a division can be in charge of implementing the ICT-enabled kiosks. It is for instance the case

with ICT e-Choupal (Singh, 2006, p. 21). Maitrayee Mukerji explained this model has been

primarily initiated for consolidating the supply chain of the corporate agency involved and for

bringing adequate answers in gaining market efficiency of the Indian agriculture (Mukerji, 2013, p.

50). This latter, however, unfortunately results in “[…] fragmented farms, a weak infrastructure,

and the involvement of numerous intermediaries (World Bank, 2003, p. 1, cited by Mukerji, 2013,

p. 50)”.

5.5.2 The franchise model

The franchise model is used as an approach for driving development at large scale of a business

model by combining profit and non-profit motives (Singh, 2006, p. 22). This model was promoted

by many organizations during the 2000’s as it facilitates scalability and replication. The

orchestrating agency plays the role of the umbrella organization and support the whole system. It

can be managed either by a public or a private actor, by an NGO or a public-private partnership.

The franchises are operated by franchisees who are village-level entrepreneurs and whose role is to

apply the standards for technology and services of the orchestrating agency in observance to the

licensing agreements with the franchiser. (World Bank, 2009, p. 25; Mukerji, 2013, p. 49)

59

At the top, a private enterprise provides limited technical, organizational, managerial and logistic

support to its franchisees: trainings, technical support, revenue sharing arrangements, service

development, etc. At the bottom, the franchisees engage as entrepreneurs to deliver the services of

the orchestrating agency to the end-users (villagers) in return for part of the profits generated. The

services are developed in partnership with the public sector (e-governance services) and the private

sector which generates revenues based on user or service fees. Both the kiosk entrepreneur and the

network orchestrator obtain the revenues thus ensuring the financial sustainability of the business

model. The idea behind this franchise model and market-based delivery of services is to foster a

market which will then develop on its own with as little intervention from the orchestrating

company as possible in order to make it self-sustaining thanks to its for-profit own managed

businesses. It is therefore crucial for the franchise model to count on a number of valuable and

adapted services for the rural end-users; otherwise, the business model will indubitably fail (Kendall

and Singh, 2006, p. 2; Mukerji, 2013, p. 49).

5.6 Typology of services

As previously explained, since the 2000s, there has been a hope that ICT can overcome at least

some of rural India's social, economic, political and administrative challenges by providing

agriculture, health, education, and other social services to the Bottom of the Pyramid, which

accounts for over 700 million people in India (Dossani, Misra and Jhaveri, 2004).

The services ICT can provide can be divided into different categories according to the type of

operations they enable. There are basically three main types of operations ICT can execute

(Dossani, Misra and Jhaveri, 2004, p. 2):

1. Informational services: transmission of non-customized information (e.g. weather forecasts)

2. Transactional services: involvement of at least two parties using ICT (e.g. email)

3. E-governance services: transactional services implying the public sector (local, state or

national government)

Further subcategorization can be done by focusing on the needs ICT fulfils. Listed below are

several sections dedicated to all of the areas concerning the need requirements in rural India:

60

1. Agriculture education and information/knowledge sharing (section 5.6.1)

2. Education for literacy and employment opportunities (section 5.6.2)

3. Healthcare information and access to primary care (section 5.6.3)

4. E-governance services (section 5.6.4)

5. Banking and Utility services (section 5.6.5)

Figure 32 – Telecentre as outreach window (adapted from Liyanage, 2009, p. 147)

5.6.1 Agriculture

In India, agriculture remains the primary occupation and source of income for about half of its labor

force (WordldBank, 2014). Therefore, it is very pertinent to consider this economic area in order to

improve the overall human development, especially in rural areas where agriculture generates

employment (around 50% of active Indian workers) and prosperity in rural India (around 18% of

total GDP in 2010, same in 2013), and is therefore central to rural development (WorldBank, 2014).

The productivity has increased but it remains quite low and most of Indian farmers are poor because

of lack of regulation and because of a system of small and inefficient farmers and unfair primary

producers. (Admane, 2014, p. 250) The worst is that system locks any possible growth of the sector,

because it provokes a “[…] cycle of low income, low investments, low productivity and low

income.”22

22



61

Figure 33 - Agriculture and employment in India (WorldBank, 2014)

Different aspects have to be satisfied in rural agriculture in order to drive development. First, we

must address the tremendous necessity for agriculture to preserve food security in rural areas since

agriculture is the main, and often times, the only source available to feed its population due to

remoteness. Also, the farming income should be considered: the more money farmers are able to

retain, the greater their purchase and investment power will be. Logically, this will have a direct

effect on the the rural economic growth due to increasing domestic demand.

Therefore, farmers constantly need information and knowledge that can help them to get more

efficient and successful operations and results: rainfall forecasting, cropping patterns, modern

cultivation practices, sources of irrigation, market in general and day-to-day market prices

information (Unwin, 2009; Kumar and Sankarakumar, 2012). Moreover, the farmers’ need

requirements can also be related to specific areas they are novice about such as “diversification of

agriculture, promotion of agripreneurship23

, precision farming, hi-tech agriculture, post-harvest

management, value addition and proper marketing […]” (Pasad, 2004, p. 106)

Most of the time, farmers lack information (information asymmetry) and knowledge (knowledge

sharing) to take crucial and beneficial decisions (Unwin, 2009; Glendenning and Ficarelli, 2012).

Farmers have inexistent or asymmetric information on global supply-and-demand conditions that

23

Agripreneurship is an embodiment of distinct functions in the market (Mises, 1996); these distinct functions include the recombination of resources in ways that create new value and offers new competitive advantage (Schumpeter, 1950). Thus, the necessary conditions for agripreneurship were derived by Amanor-Boadu (2006) to be innovation and purposeful action. - See more at: http://motresource.com/agripreneurship/

http://motresource.com/agripreneurship/

62

determine crop prices and they have at the same time inexistent or limited access to crop

management know-how and other valuable information like weather forecasts for instance. ICTs

can then play the role of agricultural extension by directly helping the farming communities to take

the right decisions based on ICT-related agricultural education and research. It constitutes what can

be called the modern farming (Jones, 1997, cited by Meera, Jhamtani and Rao, 2004, p. 1).

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Bank (2000)

recommended a framework where the farmer takes the central place of the “agricultural knowledge

triangle” including education, research and extension: AKIS/RD (Agricultural Knowledge and

Information Systems for Rural Development). (Rivera, Qamar, Mwandemere, 2005, p. 12) In this

triangle, agricultural information systems for rural development facilitate use of agriculture-related

technology, knowledge and information. The AKIS/RD's system “[...] integrates farmers,

agricultural educators, researchers and extensionists, enabling them to harness knowledge and

information from various sources to improve farming and livelihoods in rural areas” (Rivera,

Qamar, Mwandemere, 2005, p. 13).

Figure 34 - Agricultural extension as part of AKIS/RD (Unwin, 2009, p. 50)

Agricultural extension is part of a knowledge system that also includes research and agricultural

education. They all three involve complementary investments as they are interconnected in a system

(Eicher, 2001, cited by Rivera, Qamar, Mwandemere, 2005, p. 13). It is professionally related to

education as farming agents work in extension and it is also linked to agricultural research as the

knowledge used by agricultural extension stems from agricultural research. In other words,

agricultural extension uses and evaluates the information from the agricultural education system and

feeds back field observations from the research to this system. The agricultural extension’s purpose

is to share information and knowledge to farmers in order to ensure food security and improve their

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agricultural production performance as it facilitates agricultural process development through

credits, supply chain efficiency, marketing, etc. (Rivera, Qamar, Mwandemere, 2005).

Subsequently, job opportunities in agriculture will remain attractive and profitable whether ICTs

succeed to derive process transformations from the information and knowledge gathered by the

farmers, for instance by turning the traditional agriculture into sustainable agriculture. Last summer,

I visited an organic farm in Nagavalli Village, close to Bangalore, where the owner had completely

turned the farming processes towards sustainability. It paid off as he is now earning more money

and some other farmers in the village have followed the same ecological transition.

Therefore, ITC can definitely have a stake in developing agriculture as it offers to consider how to

streamline the information and knowledge in the best possible way to get used by the farmers in

order to optimize their processes. ICTs can play the role of agricultural extension and social

mobilization through integrated information and communication by directly delivering information

and knowledge to the farmers: commodity prices, agricultural practices, market behaviors and

complementary services for “[…] enhanced productivity, income, welfare and sustainable

development” (Unwin, 2009, p. 49). Farm applications and forums (telecentre based or mobile

based), rural radio forums, SMS applications or even agriculture-related TV programming are good

examples of ICT applications for driving agriculture and rural development (Qaisar, Ali khan,

Mohd and Alam, 2011; Glendenning and Ficarelli, 2012; Mittal, 2012). Technological

advancements can be classified under the following categories: past traditional ICT, initial modern

ICT and modern ICT (Glendenning and Ficarelli, 2012; Mittal, 2012).

Figure 35 - Evolution of information sources to farmers (Mittal, 2012, p. 15)

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5.6.2 Education

ICTs can not only complement education, they can even be used as a tool for distance learning

thanks to computer education based technologies that provide specific courses such as training on

farming, tailoring, weaving, and other skills that some schools do not offer to students. ICT related

educational initiatives can also provide information on higher education and employment related

education by connecting rural India to the world. 2.0. Worlwide science and technologies can be

shared with rural India so that its citizens can achieve local development in fields such as health,

agriculture and other fields. Also, a Rural Knowledge Network can emerge for enhancing the e-

learning capabilities in rural India (Devi, Rizwaan and Chander, 2012; Roy, 2012).

However, the main obstacle that rural India faces is the fight against illiteracy in its villages. As it

was previously mentioned in the section 1.2 Digital Divide, about 40 percent of India’s population

is illiterate. ICT is a robust tool; it is the right means to address groups of people who are

traditionally excluded from education due to socio-cultural reasons (marginalized ethnicities,

prejudice against females and elderly people, but more generally, people who are not able to afford

its cost and access).

Generally speaking, many rural schools lack basic infrastructural facilities and therefore are unable

to fully benefit from resources such as computers (Roy, 2012). Moreover, transport facilities are

also not readily available to children who must travel long distances to attend school. Furthermore,

teachers are often under qualified (IBM, 2005; Roy, 2012). As I observed during my visit to

Nagavalli Village, English teachers were either unable to speak English with me fluently nor were

they able to spell out English words correctly. Teachers are also really underpaid and overbooked;

this can be a reason why they cannot provide dedicated education to everyone in the class. At

Nagavalli Village, one teacher was on average in charge of more than 30 children. Students who

might need more attention are forsaken and can unluckily remain illiterate if no support is made

available to them.

In order to develop successful ICT initiatives, it is first necessary to improve the local conditions of

education, to understand the priority needs of the students and to provide knowledge to users

65

(providing proper training for the teachers) on ICT education. Teachers and students should be both

educated on how to use computer related technologies and be aware of the possibilities and

applications they are provided by ICT. As urban schools benefit from a better access to ICTs since

the ICT emergence in India in the 1980s, urban students have quite a better knowledge on the use of

ICTs while rural students are often novices in using ICTs. As urban students develop superior

competencies in internet navigation, rural students remain completely dependent on their teacher

since he or she embodies their only source of knowledge (von Lautz-Cauzanet, 2012).

ICT is an amazing resource because it permits education to become asynchronous. From anywhere

at any time, we can learn and access knowledge shared by others. Teleconferencing technologies

such as Skype are in that sense very popular all over India as they offer the opportunity to discuss

with people located at faraway distances at a very low cost. The biggest advantage of ICT is it can

facilitate the access to worldwide information as students and teachers no longer need printed and

costly books. Furthermore, students and educators can access free, fast, quickly updated information

online, as opposed to outdated library resources. Still, by its visual interactivity, ICT even facilitates

student attention, learning and retention (Singh, 2006).

5.6.3 Healthcare

Although healthcare facilities and human resources in India have continually improved since the

1950s, they are overwhelmed by the fast growing population; the availability of healthcare facilities

and professionals per capita has been drastically reduced. The Indian healthcare system is mainly

publicly funded and managed, and includes about 23'000 Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs), 3'000

Community Healthcare Centers (CHCs) and 670 District Hospitals (DHs). (Bhaskaranarayana et al,

2009, p. 160)

According the World Health Organization (WHO), the Primary Health Care (PHC)24

system

includes 5 essential services that aim at a better health for everybody:

1. Reducing exclusion and social disparities in health (universal coverage reforms);

24

http://www.who.int/topics/primary_health_care/en/

http://www.who.int/topics/primary_health_care/en/

66

2. Organizing health services around people's needs and expectations (service delivery

reforms);

3. Integrating health into all sectors (public policy reforms);

4. Pursuing collaborative models of policy dialogue (leadership reforms); and

5. Increasing stakeholder participation.

The Primary Health Care system has been recognized as limited during the past few decades in rural

India and it continues running ineffectively in spite of the increasing support of ICT. Its poor

performance is due to the absence of quality health services and their high cost, its lack of

accessibility due to the remoteness of rural areas and its inability to overcome the healthcare

consequences of the population’s growth constitute major obstacles to the amelioration of India’s

Primary Health Care System. We can also mention the lack of investments and inadequate facilities

in rural areas play a non-negligible negative impact in developing and improving the healthcare

system in rural India. (Bhaskaranarayana et al, 2009, p. 160)

The quality and efficiency of primary healthcare services are at the moment undermined as long as

it is not possible to allocate adequate financial resources in order to attract doctors. District health

officers who are qualified doctors are charged to offer promotive, preventive, curative and

rehabilitative care to approximately 25’000 people (Murthy, 2008, pp. 4-5). However, one of the

biggest issues certainly remains the inappropriateness and the high cost of health interventions or

the remoteness of district health officers. Indeed, the 80-20 paradigm could be applied to the

healthcare system in India, as around 80 percent of the specialist doctors do practice in urban areas,

while only less than 20 percent of doctors provide healthcare services to rural areas

(Bhaskaranarayana et al, 2009, p. 160). Also, it is to be reminded that the 80-20 paradigm works out

as well in India for the population’s location where around 80 percent live in rural areas and 20

percent live in urban areas. In that sense, there is a tremendous inequality regarding healthcare

access in India (Bagchi, 2006, p. 297).

ICT could therefore definitely play a crucial role in reducing the cost of consultations and related

healthcare services, increasing the access to quality services and providing the rural citizen with

information. Community healthcare information networks can allow people to consult with

specialists at a regional or national level through ICT: “Advanced computer networks would enable

67

high-speed transmission of critical medical records and images, X-rays, scans and other relevant

information.” Communication technologies provide at the same time the information to the illiterate

population about diseases, symptoms, curing process and prevention such as “[…] immunization of

children, HIV-AIDS, family planning [etc.].” (Prasad, 2004, p. 107)

Telemedecine can be a perfect example of ICT application which can help to provide or support

clinical care such as consultations and monitoring patient data through different platforms like

mobile phones, videoconference or more generally the Web 2.0 from a remote place (Bagchi, 2006;

Ghia, Patil, Ved and Jha, 2013). It delivers the medical expertise available in urban and efficient

urban hospitals to rural areas. A very well-known and historic example illustrating one of the first

innovative telemedicine initiatives in rural India is when the Indian Space Research Organization

initiated SATCom (Satellite Communication) based Telemedecine programme as an application in

2001 to serve rural and remote areas of India with quality healthcare services thanks to satellite

connectivity (Mishra, Singh and Chand, 2012). This initiative encountered a major success

throughout India, and even though India is currently focusing on “[...] high speed optic fiber based

broad band connectivityxiv

[...] [and] many of the national telehealth schemes are now based on

terrestrial broadband rather than satellite connectivity.” (Mishra, Singh and Chand, 2012, p. 162)

However, telemedicine encounters several challenges, which concern the infrastructure problems

like lack of energy power and maintenance issues (Tiwari, 2010), the difficulty to handling the ICT

systems and understand how it works out (Bagchi, 2006; Tiwari, 2010) and the belief that this

technology might not be financially sustainable considering its high initial investment (Bagchi,

2006). Particularly, the opinion that investments in health technologies are not viable on the long

run often discourages the health care system to leap forward (Murthy, 2008).

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5.6.4 E-government services

E-governmentxv

is the means by which the public sector, namely the national and state government

agencies, serves citizen-centric issues through electronic means afforded by ICT for delivering

services (Rao, 2004; Unwin, 2009). The latter should not exclusively address citizens, but also

business and others in relationship with the government by “[…] utilizing the transformational

nature of technology to create a more open, fair and empowered society which is actively engaged

in the process of being governed” (Sheridan and Riley, 2006, cited by Unwin, 2009, p. 284). As

previously mentioned, the “telecentre movement” has been reinforced by the need of e-governance

in rural and remote areas of India, in order to enable “[…] a responsive, accountable, and

transparent administration that is accessible […]” (Mukerji, 2008, p. 3).

Different kinds of e-government services can be provided, especially C2G and G2C (among others

like G2B, G2G, etc.), which have a significant importance as it concerns directly the bi-directional

relationships between the public sector and the citizens (Unwin, 2009; Kumar and al, 2013). They

can be commonly called “G2C2G” due to the fact that “ICT initiatives may be designed to provide

support to local governance as well as should be able to react to queries generated by local needs of

the communities/citizens” (Malhotra, Chariar, Das and Ilavarasan, 2007, p. 221). Service

applications range from filling out government forms, applying for licenses, requiring birth/death

certificates, clearing customs, raising grievances, paying tax, printing land records, etc. (Toyama

and al, 2004; Unwin, 2009)

E-government services offer proposition values to citizens (Rao, 2004; Malhotra, Chariar, Das and

Ilavarasan, 2007; Upadhyaya and Chugan, 2012), which can be summarized in five categories

according high-level goals of the World Bank (Unwin, 2009, p. 287):

1. Efficiency, by reducing transaction costs and delays to use of government services thanks to

the integration of multiple services from the same source of interaction;

2. Provision, by developing and delivering a provision of government services to the

underserved population of rural and remote areas;

3. Responsiveness, by removing consultations of government – direct internet interactions;

4. Accountability, by increasing transparency and eliminating corruption;

5. Participation, by enhancing the citizen participation in public decisions - more democracy.

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5.6.5 Financial and utility services

Financial services like banking and microfinance are services that constitute an important delivery

service, which serve villagers and facilitate their financial inclusion and socioeconomic

development through enhanced access to credit, bill payment and possibility to save money

according to their needs (Paul, 2004; Satchidananda and Khanolkar, 2007). Low-cost insurance

services, including life, crop and house insurance, can also be provided to villagers (Singh, 2006).

Most of the time, need requirements in villages concern services, either online or offline, which are

not related to primary needs such as the categories of needs discussed in the previous sub-sections,

including, of course, financial and insurance services as above-mentioned.

Online services permit to connect rural India with its outside environment. Communication services

for utility reasons are very helpful, especially in order to keep in touch with relatives who have

migrated to urban regions of India or abroad through e-mail, chat, VoIP (voice communication

through IP) and videoconferencing. Information services such as web-browsing, internet research,

examination results, employment opportunities or horoscope are good examples of useful services

which support the villagers to stay connected with the outside world, in order to fulfill personal

needs of information and knowledge and possibly share in return information and knowledge with

the rest of society. (Paul, 2004; Toyama and al, 2004; Mukerji, 2013) Matrimonial services also

exist, but are mostly used by parents for their children in villages (Bhatnagar, 2003).

Offline services take on also an enormous importance as ICT serving as a tool for asynchronous

learning. Desktop publishing, offline computer education and local language office software are

popular. Information can also be gathered on risk disaster (UNESCAP, 2009). Furthermore,

entertainment can also become part a dynamic component within the range services provided:

playing video games, watching movies, listening to music, etc. (Paul, 2004; Toyama and al, 2004).

However, most of the kiosk entrepreneurs prefer to provide services which are profitable and often

make the trade-off to the benefit of commercial self-interests instead of social goals. One last

service possibility is to install digital photography and photostat services (Mukerji, 2013). These

services encountered huge success as they really answer needs villagers have a high Willingness-

To-Pay for: life events like weddings for instance (Toyama and al, 2004).

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6. Introduction to the case studies

After considering ICT for rural development and introducing the private and for-profit model, we

can assess ICT can be viewed as means for development and the ICT-enabled kiosk as tool for

achievement of the scalability. As previously mentioned, ICT4D has been envisioned to make a

significant leapfrog ahead. It has been fostered during the “telecentre movement” in India by private

companies through country-level initiatives. In the 2000’s, Drishtee and N-logue, among others

such as ITC e-Choupal and Grameenphone Bangladesh, invested in private and for-profit models

with the goal of targeting the “Bottom of the Pyramid” communities. (Liyanage, 2009)

Everybody knows that generally actors who identify social and business opportunities and

understand how to efficiently answer them with attractive and profitable value propositions become

successful. However, in the case of rural India, where the BOP market shows several market

separations, it is not that easy to come with a sustainable solution. I am going to present three case

studies that have been implemented in India through the private and for-profit model: ITC e-

Choupal (corporate model), n-Logue (franchise model) and Drishtee (franchise model). The idea is

to understand the socioeconomic achievements each business model did realize, but also to depict

the challenges each of them encountered.

6.1 Source of data

6.1.1 Secondary data

In the bibliography section, at the end of the work, you will find references which allowed me to

gather most of the information on the cases and the conclusions regarding achievements and critical

issues. The secondary data has been particularly very helpful as I have been able to find out

research studies:

1) One specific research study (called by myself Research Study 1) has been conducted on ITC

e-Choupal through interviews of farmers affiliated to 4 centers in Wardha districts, in the

State of Maharashtra (Admane, 2014).

71

2) One general research study on n-Logue (called by myself Research Study 2) has been

carried out on 74 kiosks from April 2004 to September 2004 across 4 states in southern and

western India: Gujarat (3 kiosks), Karnataka (14 kiosks), Maharashtra (10 kiosks) and Tamil

Nadu (47 kiosks). (Kendall and Singh, 2006) The goal of the research study was to

“measure how characteristics of operator, village, and kiosk affect the success of the kiosk.”

(Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 11)

Figure 36 - Economic characteristics of sample states (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 9)

3) One specific research study (called by myself Research Study 3) has been conducted during

14 days in 3 villages in the surroundings of Thirupathur, in the Sivaganga district25

(Tamil

Nadu) based on research data on the telemedicine pilot project collected during April-June

2005 (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007). As cited by the research authors the reasons to

go there were (Ibid., p. 3):

(i) n-Logue was pilot testing in several villages around Thirupathur

(ii) Thirupathur and Sivaganga district are one of the least developed in Tamil Nadu

(iii) The major hospital in the district is located in Thirupathur which is at least 20

Km from nearby villages.

4) One general research study (called by myself Research Study 4) has been conducted in June

2003 in 39 kiosks of the SARI project (see endnote for more information) serving 132 kiosk

users in 5 villages of South India (Tamil Nadu) and gathered data on their demographic

background, educational status, etc.

25

one of the least developed districts in Tamil Nadu, even though literacy rate was quite high in 2005 (72.5%) and the life expectancy (67.5 years) was higher than average in India (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 3)

72

5) One specific research study (called by myself Research Study 5) has been done from

November 2005 to April 2006 by Maitrayee Mukerji at a Drishtee kiosk in Kesarpur, Uttar

Pradesh (Mukerji, 2013)

6) One general comparative research study (called by myself Research Study 6) was conducted

in 2004-2005 on 150 of Drishtee’s kiosks and 150 of n-Logue’s kiosks (Toyama and al,

2005).

I just want you here to pay attention that the results and conclusions of the above-mentioned

research studies, especially specific ones, can in any point be generalized for the whole case study

they are related to and can therefore not serve as points of direct comparison between the case

studies themselves. There is a double reason behind:

1) The results are non-significant enough because of very low representativeness of the sample

given the different contexts in India and the fact each one of the three ICT-related initiatives

was scaled in several States of India (with different socio-cultural and socio-economic

features and policy).

2) The research studies are not based on a common framework of analysis (because of the

difficulty to find quality research studies), so that the data have not been collected and

treated in the same way; There would be biases in doing direct comparisons of specific

patterns of access, use and performance between the three ICT-enabled initiatives, which I

did consequently not.

Nevertheless, I found it interesting anyway to mention their insights, so that I was finally able to

launch a final discussion on achievements and critical issues of the private and for-profit model

based on observations picked up from my literature review, these research studies and the primary

data as well.

73

6.1.2 Primary data

I decided to conduct a series of interviews on the case studies that I chose. Then, I selected and

contacted several Indian experts in information and communication technology, to which I asked a

series of questions by skype, in order to deepen or confirm the secondary data previously gathered.

An interviewing guide and a summary of these interviews are available in the appendix.

I interviewed four people by skype call, Professor K. M. Baharul Islam (personal communication,

December 16, 2014), Professor Maitrayee Mukerji (personal communication, December 17, 2014),

Mr. Satyan Mishra, Founder of Drishtee (personal communication, December 28, 2014), and

Professor Tim Unwin (personal communication, January 5, 2015). Professors Jai Asundi and

Rajendra Kumar replied on my request by filling me back the interview guide with their own

answers to the questions. You find a biography of each of them in the appendix of this work.

6.2 SWOT analysis

For each case study, I use the SWOT analysis, which serves as a business analysis tool to classify,

as its acronym indicates, the strengths (S), the weaknesses (W), the opportunities (O) and the threats

(T) that each business model entails (Pahl and Richter, 2009, Team FME, 2013):

Strengths: internal factors or capabilities that enable the organization to be successful

Weaknesses: internal factors than hinder the organization to be successful.

Opportunities: external factors the organization can capitalize on to be successful

Threats: external factors the organization should mitigate to be successful.

Figure 37 - SWOT Analysis template (Team FME, 2009, p. 6)

74

The principle is to depict each of the three business models ‘strategy, in order to see how their

respective configuration of resources and competences allows them or not to take advantage of their

environment (Johnson and al, 2009, cited by Team FME, 2013, p. 4). Through the three cases

studies, the SWOT tool enables to raise issues which are gathered into several subsections of the

discussion platform following the case studies.

6.3 Methodology

In the following three cases I decided to study each initiative as follows:

1. Firstly, I present the context in which the initiative was implemented;

2. Secondly, I describe their respective business and operating model; and

3. Thirdly, I conclude by showing the resulting rural empowerment impacts of each case study;

I mean their achievements and critical issues, and I depict their business models’ strategy by

using the SWOT analysis tool.

75

7. Case study 1: ITC e-Choupal

7.1 Context of implementation

ITC e-Choupal26

is a venture of the very famous ICT Company, India Tobacco Company, one of

India's largest multi-business corporations, with annual revenues over US$2 billion annually. Since

1990, the International Business Division of ITC, the Agribusiness Division (headquartered in

Hyderabad), more precisely, is active in agricultural sourcing and trading, with revenues over

1$milliom annually. (Admane, 2014, p. 250)

The concept of e-Choupal was introduced in June 2000 by ITC, in order to enable internet access

for farmers in rural India so that they can access to price transparency, share information and make

e-commerce. The idea behind was to facilitate trading and market information for farmers in the

Indian agriculture27

. ITC succeeded to overcome regulatory barriers resulting from the Agricultural

Produce Marketing Committee Act (APMC Act), which “[…] prohibit[ed] the purchase of specified

commodities (including several that ITC deals in) from any source other than government-

designated mandis” (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003, p. 5). The company persuaded

“[…] the political and bureaucratic leadership of various state governments that the “spirit” of the

act (to benefit the farmers) [was] better served through e-choupals [and] as a result, some states

have amended the act (such as Uttar Pradesh), while others have allowed specific exemptions for

such new business models” (Ibid., p. 5)

Therefore, it enabled the procurement and distribution channel through agricultural transactions to

be facilitated “[…] by purchasing from farmers directly by bypassing local markets (called mandis)

that are dominated by middle men” (Admane, 2014, p. 250). ITC subsequently operated a

reengineering of the agriculture and aquaculture supply chain/procurement process for commodities

which nowadays include soybean, coffee, wheat, maize, rice, tobacco, pulses and shrimp (The

DeSai Group, 2011, p. 3). Historically, the focus of ITC e-Choupal was exclusively on agriculture

commodities, but its business model horizontally as well as vertically evolved over time.

26

Choupal (Hindi) means gathering place (Source: Admane, 2014, p. 250) 27

http://www.echoupal.com

http://www.echoupal.com/

76

The early project focused on the unilateral relationship or one way supply chain between farmers,

which were the producers, and ITC, which immediately paid them. In 2003, the business model

iterated toward e-Choupal 2.0, which is basically the core business of e-Choupal still today.

Henceforth, the business model was based on a two way relationship between farmers and ITC,

where Choupal Saagars (integrated rural service hubs) have been implemented to serve farmers as

consumers by providing goods and services which were not previously accessible in rural areas.

Finally, the business model 3.0 emerged in 2008, in order to give still more consideration and

inclusion to farmers by considering them as entrepreneurs and innovators in plus of producers and

consumers. ITC e-Choupal wants in that sense strives for more rural engagement and customized

ITC’s products and services based on local demand for positive social impact. (Prahalad and

Krishnan, 2011)

Figure 40 - ITC e-Choupal timeline (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 2)

Figure 38 - The mandi system (OpenIDEO, 2012)

Figure 39 - The e-Choupal system (OpenIDEO, 2012)

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7.2 Business Model

Vision: Sustain ITC’s position as one of India’s most valuable corporations

through world class performance, creating growing value for the Indian

economy and the Company’s stakeholders.

Mission: Enhance the wealth generating capability of the enterprise in a globalizing

environment, delivering superior and sustainable stakeholder value.

Type of private model: Corporate model

Scope of Coverage: by 2006, counted around 36,000 villages in 6 Indian states (UNDP, 2006,

cited by Walsham, 2010, p. 12);

by 2013, counted 40,000 villages with 4 million farmers using the system

linked through a network of 6,500 centers in 10 States of rural India28

.

Status: Operational

The core business model (e-Choupal 1.0)

The e-Choupal operator is called a sanchalak (means operator). This person must be literate and

have computer skills. He must be elected among the farmers of the village where e-Choupal stands

because he becomes the information mediator between the machine and the farmers who are

generally illiterate. He is respected and trusted from the community with extensive farming

experience, so that being ITC representative ITC e-Choupal easily and quickly assimilates with the

local farming community. ICT e-Choupal provides an extensive training on the e-Choupal system to

this person, also called lead farmer, who can then provide the market information to their

neighboring farmers in their local languages through the e-Choupal e-commerce system at the ITC

28



78

e-Choupal center he is housing with adequate material (computers and equipment for testing crop

quality)29

. (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011)

The information services are provided in local language (generally Hindi) by the e-Choupal centers

and provide crop future’s prices, weather information, scientific farming practices, peer groups and

crop testing services as well (Walsham, 2010; Admane, 2014).

The intermediaries/coordinators for the reception of the produce from farmers are always part of

the supply chain as mandi did in the traditional system. They are called samyojaks (means

coordinators) and are paid 1 percent commission on each transaction done (Admane, 2014, p. 251).

Their role consists to support ITC in several tasks (Annamalai and Rao, 2003; Singh and Khatri

(eds.), 2008; Admane, 2014):

manage the reception/logistics of the farmer's produce at the ITC procurement hub or

collection center which serves 30-40 e-Choupal centers on a 20-30km radius;

record and maintain transaction price data; and

explore possibilities for new e-Choupal centers by making village surveys and by

identifying adequate sanchalaks.

The interaction process between ITC e-Choupal and the farmers includes several successive steps

(Annamalai and Rao, 2003; Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003; Admane, 2014):

1. The farmer gives a sample of his crop to the operator;

2. The e-Choupal operator says a spot quote;

3. If accepted by the farmer, this latter can transport all his crop production to an ITC

collection center;

4. ITC pays the farmer within 2 hours.

An e-Choupal is set up when a computer and internet connectivity (dial-up connectivity) are made

available. It covers around 6 villages and requires an investment of Rs. 40,000 (about $630) with

dial-up connectivity); Rs. 100,000 (about $1,500) if it is VSAT that is used for the connectivity

(Admane, 2014, p. 250). It is the responsibility of the e-Choupal operator to pay the operational

29



79

costs of the center (electricity and internet charges), which vary from Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 8,000 (about

$47 - $126) per year, and to manage the sales of the center, and he is total paid a commission 5Rs/-

percent per quintal of products sold (Ibid.). However, the remaining of the costs are supported by

ITC (around Rs. 50,000 annually) for the support and maintenance of the center, including training

of the operator, helpdesk, equipment, etc. (Ibid.).

Procurement revenues are dependent from the quality of produce and the transaction itself and are

allocated in the following system between the farmers and the company ITC e-Choupal (Admane,

2014, p. 255):

The farmers get between 1.5% (minimum) and 3% (maximum) profit per quintal (100 kg);

The company gets between about 10% and 15% (maximum);

On average, farmers receive 2.5% higher prices than before with the mandi system (Dangi

and Singh, 2010, p. 181; The DeSai Group, 2011, p. 3).

Several costs are supported by the farmers, others by ITC: Farmers support transaction costs like

bagging, transportation, loading and unloading of the crop production, while ITC pays back the

total transportation cost to the farmer. Moreover, ITC ensures that modern material handling

systems at the collection center efficiently unload the farmer’s produce and this latter is precisely

weighted up. (Admane, 2014)

Figure 41 - Profit of farmers and e-Choupal (Admane, 2014, p. 255)

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The move toward e-Choupal 2.0

ITC concluded that its core business with e-Choupal 1.0 did not capture enough value through its

streamlined network of farming communities: fair and effective transactions through the

procurement system answered part of the farmers' needs and requirements, but there were still no

supplies of products and complementary services within the reach of ITC and farmers had to find

solutions outside ITC's business for buying agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizers and

agrichemicals, and services like insurance and credit. (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011) Therefore, ITC

e-Choupal complemented its network with one-stop shopping infrastructures called Choupal

Saagars (integrated rural service hubs), which are situated at proximity of a cluster of 40 e-

Choupals and constitute “[…] a marketing platform and storefront for agricultural equipment,

personal consumer goods, insurance, health services (including telemedicine), an agri-extension

clinic, a fuel station, and a food court” (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 5) They are managed with

help of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to follow the demand and determine the

buying price on a daily basis (Ibid., pp. 13-14). Either the farmer could order products (agricultural

inputs and fast moving consumer goods) and services through the saagar or the sanchalak. This

latter person, doubling as operator and salesman, was also charged by ITC to stock them till “[…] a

new individual, with the title of Samyojak, oversaw a region of Sanchalaks, managing the inventory

of goods and serving as the link between Sanchalaks and ITC headquarters.” (Prahalad and

Krishnan, 2011, p. 6) It results from this new business activity that ITC e-Choupal reinforced the

sustainability of its business model given that the farmer henceforth became both the seller and the

buyer, so that now ITC e-Choupal had two-way relationships with farmers in rural and previously

inaccessible and non-targeted markets. ITC had built a holistic market infrastructure serving the

“Bottom of the Pyramid”. (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 6)

Figure 42 - e-Choupal 2.0 value chain (Seas of Change, 2012, p. 2)

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The move toward e-Choupal 3.0

ITC e-Choupal realized during the phase e-Choupal 2.0 that farmers had become entrepreneurs

through the supply chain system e-Choupal had implemented. Therefore, ITC e-Choupal decided to

add a business pillar to facilitate business opportunities for members of the rural communities.

Figure 43 – e-Choupal 3.0 Business Model (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 9)

1st business pillar: Fast Moving Consumer Goods. The FMCG business was started in 2003

under e-Choupal 2.0 to be distributed with the desire to increase the quality of life in rural India by

providing quality products and to become the leading FMCG Company in India. During the e-

Choupal phase 3, ITC decided to redesign the distribution of the food businesses by streamlining

the exchange and transforming it into “[...] an engagement model, where ITC would buy the

products from the partner companies and have a central distribution center to distribute the products

to the Samyojaks, who would then supply them directly to the retailer.” (Prahalad and Krishnan,

2011, pp. 11) The idea behind was to capture value (data and information) from the digital enabled

exchange (through mobile phone technology) between samyojaks and retailers by feedbacking ITC

and its partners for co-creating more suitable products. Therefore, Sanchalaks were not involved

anymore in the direct purchasing (because of no distribution capabilities), but were in charge of

activities they were good at because of their knowledge, experience and social network such as “[...]

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credit assessment, introduction of retailers to Samyojaks, and communication of promotional

schemes to customers.” (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 11)

2d business pillar: Agri-Inputs &Demo. The business division of Agri-inputs and Demonstration

Farms had been reinforced during the e-Choupal phase 2.0 in order to ensure farmers a minimum

wage and make them continue to farm rather than emigrate in urban areas for employment reasons.

However, demonstration farms were considered a little too much prescriptive and directive from

ITC to the farmers (with a limited audience of farmers). Therefore, ITC decided to develop

personalized demonstrations enabling more intense and closer connections between ITC and

farmers, in order to create the emergence of a knowledge society between the farmers and not only

between ITC and the farmers. The new model of demonstration farms are henceforth showcasing

improved production and harvesting techniques from leading farmers who are selected by the

Sanchalak network “[...] to disseminate the best practices and publicize the activities of the

demonstration farms.” (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, pp. 11-12)

3d business pillar: Employment exchange. It is a one-stop portal (partnership with Monster.com)

for job offerings and applications, training opportunities, and career advice. It is shaped like a

networking platform and tries to answer needs and requirements of the rural youth looking for

employment outside the agriculture and rural India. The employment portal can be accessed from

any computer but the access point remains the e-Choupal centers through the Sanchalaks, who are

paid a commission in case the applicant receives an offer letter. ITC and its portal partners get

revenues as well from transactions and ad s on the platform. (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 13)

83

7.3 Rural empowerment

7.3.1 Achievements

EFFICIENT REENGINEERED AGRICULTURAL SUPPLY CHAIN AND BETTER

SUPPORT FOR FARMERS

ICT e-Choupal implemented an oustanding alternative to traditional and unfair markets called

mandi as they set up a considerable and streamlined agricultural supply chain of numerous village

kiosk connecting farming communities and ITC throughout India by creating trust within the

farming communities and building the capacitiy of farmers to participate and benefit from its

procurement system thanks to ICT access and usage (UNDP, 2006, cited by Walsham, 2010, p. 13).

Farmers have then reduced or even removed dependency from the traditional agricultural

intermediaries (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003). The e-Choupal centers are run by

local entrepreneurs who are literate and have computer skills. They mediate the relationships

between ITC and the farmers by supporting the farmers to access and use the e-commerce platform.

They also advise the farmers by tracking future prices on the Chicago Boards and the local mandi

market for giving pieces of advice to the farmers and helping them in their decision making.

Moreover, ITC e-Choupal collaborates with different product and service providers, in order to

make available quality farm inputs and financial services for the farmers. Furthermore, the e-

Choupal network is complemented with Choupal Saagars (integrated rural service hubs), which

provide a bunch of storage, retail, insurance, loan facility, healthcare, agri-extensions and fuel

services. (Admane, 2014)

Therefore, ITC indirectly benefits from that streamlined and integrated system by ensuring the

security or quality control, the lower procurement costs and the sustainability of its supply chain

(Dangi and Singh, 2010; The DeSai Group, 2011) and farmers benefit as well from this win-win

situation with cost reductions (Seas of Change, 2012).

84

It is however also relevant to understand here the importance played by the software technology.

ITC actually revolutionized the business processes of its supply chain (for both the procurement

channel and the distribution channel) when they decided to use the ERP system (in the e-Choupal

phase 2.0) as back-end business platform (real-time integrated with the front-end business platform

where the business transactions were executed) for the content management of e-Choupal (crop,

language, state combinations). The platform was definitely user-friendly (selection by season, crop,

and region) and enabled stakeholders (farmers, tractor manufacturers, insurance firms, aqua product

companies, etc.) to get the information data on the business processes they were concerned in

through planning and analytical tools. Even the language requirements were overcome (Unicode-

based language fonts) and therefore facilitated the user environment compared to the past (e-

Choupal 1.0). (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 17)

Figure 44 - e-Choupal Supply Chain (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 4)

85

ECONOMY OF TIME (TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL MARKET SEPARATION BRIDGED)

With the ITC procurement system, if the farmer is located in a remote area, he prefers the e-

Choupal system to the mandi system, as he do not need “[…] to wait for hours, or even days, before

the produce [is] sold.” (Admane, 2014, p. 251) Therefore the mandi system is broken up. The

Research Study 1 shows results regarding comparison of transaction time between the two systems.

It is obvious the e-Choupal system is a better solution for the farmers (Admane, 2014, p. 255).

Figure 45 - Research Study 1: Comparison of transaction time (Admane, 2014, p.

255)

A regional e-Choupal head explained the situation as follows: “With manual scales and record

keeping for grains [in the mandi system], there was delay in weighing and transportation of the

grains. With handheld devices for recording inventory and an ERP application for tracking it [in the

e-Choupal system], our collection processes are faster and we can get the grain to the mills sooner.”

(Tarafdar and Singh, 2011, p. 10)

ADEQUATE, TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE INFORMATION (INFORMATIONAL

MARKET SEPARATION BRIDGED)

Farmers had limited or inexistent information and communication access (information asymmetry)

and their farming techniques were not so efficient. The local market mandis imposed price and

conditions in their advantage and were generally corrupted and ineffective (Prahalad and Krishnan,

2011).

On the contrary, ITC e-Choupal facilitates and shares flows of reliable and transparent information

and knowledge among the farmers (weather, prices, news, agriculture extension and risk

86

management). Therefore, the e-Choupal system improves consequently the productivity, quality and

competitiveness of Indian agriculture with support of real-time and, customized and effective

information as it enables better decision making concerning cropping patterns and agronomy

practices30

. Farmers can get access to e-portals in their local language that show them “[…] local &

global market prices, crop management know-how customized to the local agro-climatic conditions,

timely and relevant weather forecasts, transparent discovery of prices for their produce, and much

more”31

(Chand, 2006).

Moreover, with the e-Choupal system losses are negligible because an electronic weighing machine

is used, while with the mandi system there were systematic losses (up to 4kg per quintal) because

the trolley was weighed with the produce and the wastage level was higher as well (Admane, 2014).

Furthermore, measurement results are immediately available to farmers while weighing is done

(Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003). Therefore, farmers have henceforth confidence in

this local organizational capacity (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003) and retrieve kind

of social dignity (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011).

GOOD MEASURES, BETTER PRODUCTIVITY AND BETTER QUALITY FOR THE

FARMERS AND FOR ITC

As ITC e-Choupal provides the farming communities with helpful information like weather

forecasts and farming methods, with useful products like high quality farm inputs and with

supporting services like insurance, ITC e-Choupal succeeds to improve the productivity and quality

(efficiency) of the farmers’ output.

The company also indirectly benefits from that situation as that increases the average quality of its

procured products and decreases the underlying risks in its supply chain. (The DeSai Group, 2011,

p. 2) Moreover, farmers are distributed “bonus points”, in the case if “produce [which] are much

higher than quality norm”, to be exchanged in return of ITC products (The DeSai Group, 2011, p.

2). It is a motivation driver which pushes farmers to work for high quality produce.

30

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87

BETTER INFORMATION, BETTER PRICE AND DECISION MAKING, BETTER INCOME

(VIRTUOUS CYCLE)

Farmers traditionally sold their products on marketplaces called mandi where they were forced to be

“price-takers” because of their poorness and illiterateness. In the e-Choupal system, farmers directly

sell their production to ITC e-Choupal, bypassing the traditional middlemen and wholesale markets

which took significant transaction costs in the intermediation of the business relationship:

“Commission agents at the mandi used a small weighing scale that was inaccurate and resulted in

less revenue in proportion to the produce [and] the wastage level was higher, because the agents

tended to throw away some grain while evaluating its quality.” (Admane, 2014, p. 251)

With e-Choupal, the farmers have the real time price information available (provision of market

prices through the e-commerce platform), so that they henceforth have control over the price choice

and can in turn decide the right time to sell their crop production for maximizing their own income.

It results from this situation a better decision making and in turn a better income for the farmer.

(Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 16) Therefore, the venture-led ICT e-Choupal enables economic efficiency

though three factors Maitrayee Mukerji identified in his book (2013, p. 50):

1. aggregation of demands into an only computing system (e-commerce platform)

2. reduction in the transaction cost (because of no middlemen like in the mandi system)

3. better bargaining power for the farmers (because of better decision making, and cheaper and

reliable products/services available to farmers)

Figure 46 - Research Study 1: Satisfaction with e-Choupal (Admane, 2014, p. 255)

In the Research Study 1, 35% of farmers were not satisfied, as they sometimes get higher revenues

in the mandi system (1st reason), and they are not welcome back if their produce is of low quality

(Admane, 2014, pp. 255-256).

88

EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE PLATFORM

ITC e-Choupal implemented during the phase e-Choupal 3.0 the pillar of employment exchanges,

which answered a double demand (Admane, 2014, p. 254):

1. Expanding businesses in urban areas were looking for qualified candidates from rural areas,

but there were no ways to do match-making with them or it was expensive and time-

consuming.

2. As shown in the research study 1, most of the young people did not intend to work in

agriculture. Revenues are low and there is high demand for other employment opportunities

outside agriculture or additional revenues to agriculture.

LOCAL PARTICIPATION

The farming communities have been welcomed to get involved in the design phases of the project

and sometimes have given inputs and feedbacks for the web platform of e-Choupal, in order to

make it user-friendly. Moreover, the sanchalak is respected and trusted from the farming

community, which selects him as ICT representative (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo,

2003).

Furthermore, the farmers actively and socially participate to the e-Choupal ecosystem whose the

Hindi name, as a reminder, means “gathering place” in English: information and knowledge

sharing, peer-group discussions, decision making, transaction, etc. Therefore, there is strong sense

of ownership among the farmers of the community.

Figure 47 - Employment exchanges (adapted from Admane, 2014, p. 254)

89

During the e-Choupal phase 3.0, ITC also decided to develop personalized farm demonstrations, in

order to enable more intense and closer connections between ITC and farmers and create the

emergence of a knowledge society between the farmers by cross-learning sharing (Prahalad and

Krishnan, 2011, p. 12)

ADEQUATE CONTENT, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES AND CO-CREATION IN THE

BUSINESS PROCESS

During the e-Choupal phase 1.0, ITC decided to personalize the content on its online platform for

the heterogeneous farmer groups: “There was a separate website for each of the crop and language

combinations (e.g., soyachoupal for soya beans, aquachoupal for marine products, planters.net for

coffee).” (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 16) During the e-Choupal phase 2.0, these individual

websites all have been integrated into only one: www.echoupal.com (Ibid, p. 17).

With e-Choupal phase 3.0, ITC decided to engage more in the contextual understanding of its

retailers/sellers/sanchalaks and customers/buyers/farmers, in order to better address their

requirements with value-added products and services. There was a real willingness to create an

open system for innovation, development and co-creation and through the hubs, so that they become

an entrepreneurial ecosystem for identifying opportunities “[…] by intercepting, capturing,

collating, and reporting emerging trends, tastes, and business propositions in the hub ecosystem.”

(Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 21)

ITC initiated the redesign of the distribution supply chain, in order to capture more value (data and

information). They eliminated the sanchalaks from the supply chain since they did not provide

enough value (low distribution capability and low interest) and streamlined a digital enabled

exchange only between samyojaks and retailers for feedback to ITC and its partners in co-creating

more suitable products (Ibid.). Here, mobile phone technology (sms messages and mms messages)

played the role of vehicle for providing the necessary information to farmers' needs and requests

without necessarily going to the e-Choupal center: “For example, a farmer could use his mobile

phone to send in a digital picture of a diseased crop to obtain advice on what to do to fix it.” (Ibid.,

2011, p. 14)

90

Moreover, they took the initiative to make the farmers participate in the design and co-creation of

the content, in order to develop more adapted content to needs and requirements. While ITC e-

Choupal received aggregated data on the individual farmers through the sanchalak during the e-

Choupal phase 2.0, ITC also henceforth (with e-Choupal 3.0) used mobile technology to

individually connect with the farmers and capture directly information and feedback from them, in

order to further develop customized solutions and provide advises to farmers with ITC staff

(Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011).

Finally, it is absolutely certain the undergoing shift from the pc platform (at the e-Choupal center)

to the mobile platform was an enabler for improving customization of e-Choupal services and for

facilitating user-friendliness (individual and home appliance) (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 17).

However, even though the telecommunication network in rural India has been improved and

developed over time, there are, I would say, still three issues to overcome regarding the technology

the e-Choupal center: 1. the human capacity (limited technology-related capability); 2. the

affordability (limited capacity to pay); 3. the connectivity (limited coverage).

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF THE BUSINESS MODEL

ITC claimed its business to be totally profitable and sustainable, arguing that it was able to recover

equipment costs from an e-Choupal center in only one operational year (Dangi and Singh, 2010, p.

181). Since ITC is the network agency and a Corporation with shareholders, its business model

remains sustainable as long as ITC considers e-Choupal to be a profitable business (Seas of Change,

2012, p. 5).

Moreover, ITC decided to diversify its portfolio in phase 3.0 for not only counting on agricultural

commodity sourcing and FMCG distribution, in order to continue to expand and scale its business

in rural India by exploring new business models. This decision is partly due to the high inflation in

2006 in India when “[…] prices were increasing and agricultural production was suffering” (p. 10),

which made realize ITC the importance of the diversification for ensuring sustainability.

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OTHER SOCIOECONOMIC COLLATERAL EFFECTS

Villagers can also use the center as place of information and communication thanks to internet

connectivity. Village children can especially use “[…] computers for school work, games and to

obtain and print of their academic test results.” (Admane, 2014, p. 253)

INFRASTRUCTURE

In rural and remote India, issues can occur with the infrastructure such as “[…] frequent electricity

outage and unreliable Internet connectivity” (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003, p. 5).

However, ITC did work on getting upgraded telephone exchanges and VSAT systems were used in

remote areas. Furthermore, some e-choupal centers were even equipped with “[…] backup batteries

recharged with solar panels.” (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003, p. 5) Over time, ITC

e-Choupal succeeded to upgrade its connectivity infrastructure so that the e-Choupal centers used

broadband VSATs for real-time and fast internet connectivity (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 17).

Figure 48 - VSAT satellite dish for connectivity (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 7)

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7.3.2 Critical issues

SOCIO-CULTURAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC INCLUSION AND INTEGRATION

Kumar (2004, cited by Walsham, 2010, p. 13) suggested that access to the e-Choupal system was

influenced at village level by castes, political affiliations and economic size of one’s farm, even

though he admitted that further and more exhaustive research was needed to assess this assertion.

Moreover, the core business of ITC e-Choupal is to procure farmers' produce and sell it for profit.

ITC center should more take into account the village ecosystem and propose other value

propositions, in order to make young people stay in rural areas and not emigrate in masses in urban

areas. In that sense, it is at a certain point the reason why e-Choupal iterated from e-Choupal 2.0 to

e-Choupal 3.0: integration of the platform “employment exchanges” and willingness to make its

farming communities become entrepreneurs and co-creators.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT

Moreover, the fact ITC operates a rural consolidation through a kind of “corporatization” or

“monopolization” of the procurement and information channels of the Indian agriculture may lead

to think “[...] the individual income increase of participating members may be at the expense of

non-participating members” (Dangi and Singh, 2010, p. 179). It can therefore be considered like a

monopoly as it “[…] promotes corporate dependency of local agriculture and monoculturisation of

agroproduction systems” (Singh and Khatri (eds.), 2008, p. 4).

The question which comes up behind is how long the monopolistic attitude of ITC will sustain

consumer advantage; considering business goals as above to social goals, because of market logic

of profitability: “Simple economic logic tells us that the apparent consumer benefits accrued when a

monopoly is being established is short lived.” (Singh and Khatri, 2008, p. 3)

Furthermore, the most damaging reality is that this monopolistic approach substitutes alternative

operators like “freelance government mandi based procurement agents”. The mandi system already

markets half less soy than before the introduction of the e-Choupal system (Dangi and Singh, 2010,

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p. 181). Even though these alternative operators were inefficient and even not fair, they were part of

the rural community and the profit generated and wealth created remained in rural India, while with

the ITC e-Choupal system the profit is in the hands of the ITC Corporation.

The positive impact of ITC e-Choupal on the community may be then at certain points mitigated,

especially for other reasons, too:

No real proof the small and poor farmers benefit from the e-Choupal system as the produce

requirements are henceforth higher for the farmers; high quality crops require to invest

money so that “the e-Choupal system is built around the needs and interests of rich farmers

[...]” (Singh and Khatri, 2008, p. 3) An ITC Sagaar store officer in Sehore District (Madhya

Pradesh) had reported statistics according the typology of farmers selling through the e-

Choupal channel: 70% were medium-large farmers (more than 5 acres32

of land) and 30%

were small farmers (less than 5 acres of land) (Seas of Change, 2012, p. 3).

Commercial focus on agriculture production and corporate dependency through

“monoculturisation” increases prices and reduces local food security (Singh and Khatri,

2008, pp. 3-4); There has already been a cropping shift towards soy plantation (from 50-

90% in some regions) (Dangi and Singh, 2010, p. 181);

No “get-involved” possibilities for the local communities to leverage the monopolistic

system of ITC.

Effective governance should then remain the priority for e-Choupal over time, in order to continue

to serve the socio-economic goals and self-sustainability of its shareholders (Seas of Change, 2012).

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

ITC should more consider the environmental impact, as they already somehow reached the

economic impact and the social impact, in order to enable sustainable development in Indian

agriculture: agri waste recycling, organic farming practices, and use of bio fuels from waste land

(Pant and Negi, 2014).

32

1 acre = 4,046.8564224 m2

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GEOGRAPHIC SCALABILITY AND DIVERSIFICATION

One of the problems with IC e-Choupal is the scope of its business whose its scalability depends. It

is exclusively focused on agriculture related to soyabean and wheat, and therefore ignore other

crops in its procurement system (Mukerji, personnal communication, December 17, 2014) such as

cotton, fruits, vegetables and jawar. There are subsequently several rural areas of India that cannot

be served by e-Choupal. Other business areas could also be integrated within the e-Choupal’s

business scope: fisheries, dairy and poultry. (Admane, 2014)

CAPABILITY OF SANCHALAKS AS SELLERS

During the phase e-Choupal 2.0, the Sanchalaks were not used to sell products and services and

manage the inventory as they did not have any business skills and entrepreneurial experience. Many

of them “[...] were losing interest in their role and felt that they were wasting time and effort in

developing these businesses without much return.” (Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 6) Therefore,

in the e-Choupal phase 3.0, ITC decided to train them in retailing and distribution management, so

that their activity becomes effective, time-worthy and profitable as well.

TECHNOLOGY

ITC wanted to use ICT for answering appropriate and individual needs of farmers based on

analytics, so that they “[…] partnered with Nokia to think about how to personalize what each

farmer received, and how to develop a user-friendly interface that would secure farmer adoption of

using mobile technology for transactions previously conducted through the e-Choupal computer.”

(Prahalad and Krishnan, 2011, p. 14) A big issue encountered at that point by ITC was the need of

local language.

95

7.3.3 SWOT

Figure 49 - SWOT Analysis of ITC e-Choupal (Author, 2014)

96

8. Case study 2: n-Logue


In the mid 1990’s, a group of people at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, decided to

explore ICT solutions to extend internet and telecommunications in rural areas. They created the

Telecommunications and Computer Networking (TeNeT) Group, in order to accomplish the

mission of reducing network access costs in India by extending telecommunication and internet

connectivity to rural areas. (Paul, 2004; Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005)

Existing ICT equipment in India was imported from the West at that time. That was not particularly

appropriate for India since it is important to consider the context in which technology is used to

produce the best effect and impact. Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala, from the TeNeT team,

explained the situation as follows (cited by Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005, p. 159):

In the West, the cost of providing a telephone line is around USD 800. We use the same

technology and it is not surprising that our numbers are similar. But this cost of USD 800

was reached in the West more than a decade back. There too, an operator needsed between

35-40% of initial investment as yearly revenue to break even. However, this amounts to

barely USD 30 per month and is affordable to over 90% of the homes. Therefore, homes in

the West have been fully wired up quite some time back. Now, reducing the cost further no

longer expands the market. Their R&D focus therefore naturally shifts to the replacement

market, where more and more features and services need to be provided rather than lower

cost products.

In India, the situation was quite different regarding the cost of connectivity. The cost of providing a

telephone line if considered the same as in Western Rs. 35,00033

(USD 813) would have deduced a

monthly revenue between 35-40% of initial investment, Rs. 1,000 (USD 20-25), as assessed by

Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala. The problem was that this amount is not affordable enough in

33 around 43 Rupees equaled 1 USD at that time (Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005)

97

India: only 2 to 3 percent of the households could afford this amount and they were concentrated in

cities. It is therefore clear enough local ICT R&D had to develop local ICT solutions adapted to the

context of India by taking into account the cost-effectiveness (affordability), the usage (awareness),

the services (access) and the operational constraints (availability). As a result, the cost per line

needed to come down to around Rs. 10,000 (USD 232) a line, in order to get affordable for most of

the households in India. (Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005, pp. 159-160)

Subsequently, IIT in collaboration with Midas Communication Technologies and Analog Devices

Inc. (USA) decided to develop a local access system for its village-level communications package

based on a wireless local loop technology called corDECT (Sreekumar, 2011, p. 144), “since 70%

of the telecom infrastructure costs were in the access systems” (Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan,

2005, p. 160). As a result, the local access systems could be connected to a backbone telecom

network for very low investment (similarly to the cable TV network): the average cost line was Rs.

11,500 (USD 267) per village (Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, p .160).

As Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), the major state-owned telecom enterprise, did not succeed

to financially sustain in providing conventional telephone and internet connections in the end of

1990’s to rural areas because of telecom regulation and business favoring the import of much more

expensive systems, Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala hoped that private companies would opt for the

most adequate and cost-effective solution. However, indifference of the public sector and the

vendor system (financial advances were offered by multinational vendors to buyers) struggled his

plans, so that the first success of corDECT were only in some other developing countries before

getting accepted as a standard technology by some telecom operators in India and becoming a

commercial success (generating annual royalties of millions of US dollar for the TeNeT group).

(Ibid.)

The TeNeT group also incubated several ICT-related technologies for rural India (Ibid., p. 161):

DIAS -Digital Internet Access System- This product employs Digital Subscriber

Loop (DSL) Technology to provide simultaneous telephony and always-on, high speed

Internet connectivity on existing telephone cables.

A video conferencing software that works on very low bandwidths

Local language interfaces and software

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A remote medical diagnostic kit, with the aid of which a doctor can do basic diagnosis

online, and make appointments if required

An ATM suitable for villages at a cost 1/20th of normal ATMs

A simple SMS and email device appropriate for low cost telecentres.

Furthermore, India was a country where the rural telecommunications was traditionally

implemented whether license agreements enforced to set up infrastructures. Getting a Basic Service

Operator (BSO) license for telephony was consequently very complicated for small players till

regulation changed and opened up the ISP license market in 1998 (Howard, Simms and Simanis,

2001, p. 3; Paul, 2004, p. 2). It was the time when the TeNeT group launched n-Logue to serve as

rural internet service provider by using the corDECT technology. N-Logue indeed wanted to

pioneer a franchised and decentralized business model in order to provide cost-effective and last-

mile rural connectivity in rural India. In November 2001, n-Logue has been finally granted an ISP

license from the Department of Telecommunication of the government of India (Paul, 2004, p. 9).

This license gave n-Logue the possibility to provide nationwide internet services. However, since

N-Logue worked on the basis of a franchised and for-profit business models in different States of

India, regional licenses and approvals had to be obtained for the location of the Access Center. In

that sense, n-Logue tried to leverage relationships with the complex regulatory licensing of

protected Indian telecommunication sector with IIT-Madras, in order to provide internet

connectivity and telephone service everywhere it operated in rural India.

It is however to underline that n-Logue was not able to provide telephony services in areas which

were not served by big players because of regulation. In 2003, a new telecom policy unified the

license system for voice and data services so that it removed the obligation for telecom companies

to provide rural connectivity (Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005, p. 162). That conducted n-

Logue to fail in its attempt to make partnerships with telecom companies (also with the public

telecom enterprise, BSNL) to help them fulfill their mandatory quota in providing rural connectivity

through n-Logue’s RSPs. Nevertheless, n-Logue started its business model by providing internet

connectivity.

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8.2 Business Model

Vision: Enhance the quality of life of every rural Indian by driving the digital

revolution.

Mission: Set up a profitable network of wirelessly-connected Internet kiosks in villages

throughout India.

Scope of coverage: 7 States: Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra

and Madhya Pradesh (Paul, 2004, p. 16)

Status: Non-operational since 2007 (Satyan Mishra, personal communication,

December 28, 2014)

The TeNeT group took its inspiration from the rapid expansion of cable TV in India (from zero to

50 million within a decade) where trained operators went to each house to find subscribers and

earned money from them on a monthly basis by providing repairing services on Sunday. Based on

such a small-scale entrepreneurship system, manpower costs were strongly reduced, which made

the service affordable. Thereby, TeNeT decided to set up a low-cost and distributed business model

of delivery for providing rural connectivity through rural service providers (RSPs), in order “[…] to

spur demand for internet access through its corDECT technology” (Kumar and Jhunjhunwala, 2002,

cited by Mukerji, 2013, p. 37).

N-Logue’s business model followed the idea of working on a network of local entrepreneurs with

the mission to provide services to rural subscribers. It is based on a three-tier franchise business

model that executes the delivery and management of internet services to the end users. The strategy

of decentralization envisioned a rapid expansion of the business model to n-Logue. Each tier level

worked out independently on a financial point of view but interdependently on an operating point of

view (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001; Jhunjhunwala and Ramachandran, 2004; Jhunjhunwala,

Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004; Toyama, Kiri, Menon, Pal, Sethi and Srinivasan, 2005;

Ramachander, 2007):

1. At the first level, n-Logue took the responsibility for overall management of the business

model. The company made relationships with upstream suppliers for equipment and content

100

providers, such as hardware and solution providers, banks, NGOs and governments. They all

helped to facilitate and support the business model of n-Logue because of share of interest.

2. At the second level, n-Logue franchised a network of local service providers or partners

(LSPs) that were responsible for local management of the network. They were located in

each region where N-Logue operated. Most of the time, a business owner was identified and

approached to get franchised by n-Logue in order to facilitate the process of expansion.

Once the partnership done, the LSPs provided the front-line implementation by setting up an

access center in rural areas with support of n-Logue and managed the access center that

connected with the internet kiosks in order to afford last-mile access to subscribers in the

area: connectivity to Internet and telecom access were provided. LSPs gave the online

support and training for the rural population and managed the local content and email

services. They also took the responsibility of recruiting local entrepreneurs to operate the

village kiosk a lower level of the business model and marketed n-Logue services to private

and public actors to increase the subscriber base for better cost-efficiency. Finally, they also

proposed after-sales services to subscribers in order to build internet communities.

3. At the third and bottom-tier level, local entrepreneurs or kiosk operators were recruited

by LSPs to invest in, set up and manage internet kiosks that proposed Internet and

computer-based services for villages. The kiosk services were marketed on a same

franchised brand name called ‘Chiraag’, which means ‘enlightenment’. N-Logue offered

training, support and assistance to these locally-owned franchise subscribers, in order to

guarantee their self-sustainability. They were generally youngsters, women, having passed

the 10th

standard education level (Jhunjhunwala and Ramachandran, 2004, p. 32).

Figure 51 - Figure 51 - Operating model of n-Logue (Paul, 2004, p. 8)

Figure 50 - n-Logue's business model (Jhunjhunwala and al, 2004, p. 33)

101

The Access Centers did not require to be managed by telecom experts as a built-in Operation and

Maintenance Console (OMCxvi

) and provided real-time monitoring and management of the

complete unit system (Paul, 2004, p. 7).

They allowed wireless voice and data connectivity to about 400 to 600 connections in a radius of

around 25 km (around 3000 square km) from the Base Station Distributor (BSDxvii

) to the Relay

Base Station (RBSxviii

), which directly connected to subscribers in a radius of around 10 km

(Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, pp. 32-33; Paul, 2004, pp. 6-7). They

generated revenue through telecom services to subscribers (nominal cost). They operated through

Internet connection to the nearest Internet Gateway. This latter was a tower with multiple Compact

Base Stations (CBSsxix

) to transmit the corDECT signal.

They were equipped with a DECT Interface Unit (DIUxx

) and a Remote Access Switch (RAS -

where the Internet traffic is separated and diverted thereby reducing the internet congestion34

), for

simultaneous voice and data access. A technician was allocated to the access center in order to

ensure its consistency and quality in case of technical problems. The DIU was remotely connected

to the Base Station Distributor (BSDxxi

) with an E1 fiber line, which was more reliable technology

than copper wire infrastructure and was energy efficient (less than 600 watts of power, with solar

energy capability), too. (Paul, 2004, pp. 6-7)

34

http://www.bbs.com.sg/wll.html

Figure 52 - corDECT design (Paul, 2004, p. 7)


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N-Logue generated money from its business model directly through the operations of the LSPs and

indirectly through the local entrepreneurs. The franchise business model was used to get n-Logue’s

partners access to the infrastructure and earn money in their turn for ensuring self-sustainability.

Two main revenue streams can be detailed:

1. The agency fees were the setup fees paid by LSPs when partnering with n-Logue;

2. Part of the subscription revenues generated by LSPs according to the financing and revenue

sharing possibility chosen.

LSP generated revenues from internet services (50%), from voice accounts (40%) and from

franchisee services (10%) and they had to pay agency fees and financial contributions to n-Logue

according to two financing and revenue sharing possibilities (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001, p.

13)

1) full deposit model: refundable deposit of $20,000 related to the agreement since n-Logue

had set up the access center with the LSP and paid for it. Further investments could be

considered depending on the performance of the project initiated. Revenues were split 50:50

with n-Logue as subscription revenues; all assets belong to n-Logue.

2) staggered investment model: refundable deposit of $4,500 in year 1 ($9,000 worth of access

center is in its own name) and bank guarantee to recover $13,500 to n-Logue in year 2.

Revenues were split 40:60 with n-Logue; all assets remaining in n-Logue’s name.

Kiosk entrepreneurs or subscribers set up the internet kiosk for about $1,000 and funded in the

range of $700 to $800 (since operators had to generate between 12.5% and 20% of the investment)

and they needed to generate about $70-$80 per month to break-even ((Howard, Simms and Simanis,

2001, p. 15; Jhunjhunwala and Ramachandran, 2004, p. 32). The kiosk was furnished with signal

receptor, PC with monitor, peripherals including microphone and speaker, digital camera, inkjet

printer, etc. (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001; Paul, 2004) It provided general information and

communication services to villagers like computer education and computer-based education,

healthcare services, agricultural services, e-government services and utility services. Several

services used IT without internet connectivity such as video games and entertainment in general

(Kendall and Singh, 2006). Services generated revenues for the kiosk entrepreneur according to

“price points”: basic services were situated between Rs. 5 and Rs. 20; computer education (one hour

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every day for one month) was Rs. 100 and horoscope was the most expensive up to Rs. 150

(Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 10; Sey, 2010, p. 335).

Here below, find the chart of the top services of all the n-Logue kiosks during the first quarter of

2004 (Paul, 2004, p. 24)

Singh mentioned out of the Research Study 2 that “[...] through a process of social norms and

expectations, kiosk operators [provided] a certain amount of free services that include remote health

diagnosis, agricultural techniques and disease information, and basic education.” (Kendall and

Singh, 2006, p. 25) Find below, the kiosk services frequency Kendall and Singh mentioned in the

Research Study 2 for the 4 States studied:

Figure 54 - Kiosk services frequency (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 10)

Figure 53 - the top services of all n-Logue kiosks, 2004 (Paul, 2004, p. 24)

104

Kendall and Singh (2006, p. 26), in the Research Study 2, also found out several empirical results

based on multiple regressions, which enlightened a certain number of factors had a significant

impact on the success of a n-Logue kiosk and others that did not (see appendix for regressions and

tables):

Location: significant. Kiosks entrepreneurs who have situated their kiosk close to a main

road of their village are significantly more profitable than others within the village.

Age: significant. Older kiosk entrepreneurs know more people within the village than young

people. Their human capital is higher and results into more customers

Seasonality and learning effects: seems significant. It is certainly related to the phased cost

approach where the fixed costs increased gradually to let enough time to the entrepreneur to

learn its business and perform better: “The higher average revenue of the newer kiosks may

reflect a learning curve on the part of n-Logue in their selection process and training regime.

35” (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 23)

Education: not significant. There is no performance difference between a low educated and a

high educated kiosk entrepreneur.

Gender: not significant. It does not significantly affect kiosk profitability if the kiosk

operator is a woman.

Caste: significant. The caste designation of the kiosk operator impacts on his/her

performance; there is caste discrimination.

Therefore, the Research Study 2 shows us that some variables play a significant role in the

generation of kiosk revenues: a good location attracts more people, the belonging to a more

representative and medium-high socioeconomic caste attracts the people of the same caste and a

35

“[…]average kiosk ages do not differ significantly across the four states, so that geographic variation at that level cannot be the explanation for the observed pattern as discussed here.” (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 23)

Figure 55 - Highest revenue generating services by State (Kendall and Singh, 2006,

p. 27)

105

higher human capital due to older age makes an higher social networks, and so more customers, too.

Let’s just note that in Tamil Nadu, the caste factor was less significant. The reason behind was

certainly related to the fact there happened “an early social revolution involving the rise of

scheduled and backward castes in a ‘self-respect movement’.” (Ibid., p. 18) Moreover, this State

was more densely populated and more urbanized and in turn certainly more contemporary.


8.3.1 Achievements

INNOVATIVE, SIMPLE AND AFFORDABLE CONNECTIVITY MODEL

The TeNeT group not only developed appropriate ICT for rural India, it also reconsidered the

business model behind providing ICT in rural India. The technology n-Logue used (local loop

network equipment, ReMeDi systemxxii

, etc.) was simple and affordable to use and to implement.

The reason why is they had previously enlightened two reasons that made the high cost of providing

rural connectivity: the expensive imported technology as previously mentioned and the expensive

organizational model of delivery. (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001)

It is therefore relevant to raise the important contribution n-Logue Communications provided in

setting up connectivity in several villages of rural India with the corDECT technology

(Ramachander, 2007, p. 189). The CorDECT technology answered the problems of remoteness, the

lack of infrastructure and the cost of technology in rural areas.

It did not require expensive infrastructure as it was the case with traditional landline or even cellular

systems, but just needed 4 system components, in order to make the last-mile link connection for

delivering Internet access to telecommunications customers (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001, p.

2).

106

The central base station or direct interface unit (CBS/DIU) could assume traffic from 200 to 1,000

subscribers in rural areas. A large subscriber base was then not required to reaching profitability by

returns to scale, as the CBS/DIU could easily work for small and dispersed markets. Subsequently,

the usage costs of the technology and the infrastructure investment were not that high, which made

the technology affordable for rural India (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001).

This technology of connectivity provided in that sense several advantages we can cite down here

from the literature review (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001, p. 9; Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran,

and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 31; Gurumurthy, Singh and Kasinathan, 2005, p. 2; Ramachander, p.

189):

ease of installation

low capital investments

reduced operational costs

simultaneous telephone and Internet connectivity or voice and data communication;

radio-frequency instead of wires (type of infrastructure);

high heat-tolerance (can work at 55°C);

low power requirement (at less than 1 KW);

35 to 70 Kbps, see up to 384 Kbps (dedicated connectivity).

25 km coverage (availability when a repeater is used for extension)

Figure 56 – corDECT vs. Traditional technologies (Howard, Simms and Simanis, 2001, p. 7)

107

COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Three technology innovations were used for the services provided in the n-Logue kiosk

(Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 37; Paul, 2004):

1) Language applications: N-Logue implemented an office suite package called CKShakti in

local language (from Chennai Kavigal Private Ltd and TeNeT): three dual language packs

available (between the local language and English).

2) Video-conferencing Software: There were applications for telemedicine, education, and

agriculture. TeNeT and Objective Oriented Programming Systems Pvt. Ltd (OOPS)

launched a software called iSEE functioning at very low bandwidth.

3) Remote Diagnostics: Once more TeNeT and another partner, Recently Neuro-synaptic Ltd,

created a telemedicine ReMeDi system helped to remotely monitor a villager’s temperature,

blood pressure and heart beats.More information on this technology are provided later on in

the section telemedicine services as support to PHC.

Figure 57 - n-Logue

wireless access tower

(Tirumvallur) (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 7)

108

GENERAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SERVICES

E-services like e-mail and video mail were provided by the kiosks and encountered success. They

were essential tools in order to keep in touch with relatives and family members living or working

in urban areas or even abroad. Video mail was more popular in the rural areas since the villagers

felt more comfortable with a face-to-face dialogue than mailing (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and

Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 33; Paul, 2004, p. 22).

COMPUTER EDUCATION AND COMPUTER-BASED EDUCATION

Education module of courses (20-50 hours, depending on the level), were offered in order to

develop computer skills and consequently increase employment opportunities for villagers.

Consequently, the brand Chiraag was created and designed into three categories related to ages and

skills of the participants: Red, Blue and Green. Typing courses are also provided to children and

adults and villagers can get support for completing their resume before applying for a job.

(Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 33; Paul, 2004, p. 21)

Moreover, remote tutorials were based on a question and answer format by suggesting the answers

to be provided and supplemented with a voiceover. Organized in three categories (learn, practice

and test), they aimed at supporting children for school assignments in order to compensate the low

availability of good teachers in rural areas. They address different topics such as English,

Figure 58 - N-Logue kiosk near Pabal, Maharashtra (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 2)

109

Mathematics, Science, etc. (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 33; Paul,

2004, p. 21) For instance, I personally experienced it when I visited during summer 2013 a school

in Nagavalli Village where English teachers were really bad at speaking that language most of the

time. Spoken English plays here a key role in increasing job opportunities, so that villagers, either

children or adults they are, use education modules that have been especially developed to improve

their ability to speak English.

AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION

Videoconference was used to enable veterinaries to give diagnostics, answer questions and remove

doubts of the farmer regarding their animals or produces from agriculture. This service was

appreciated very much, as it is of first importance for the farmers to get their cattle healthy.

Additional information services could also get provided to the farmers such as weather reports,

market price and other market-related information. (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and

Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 34; Paul, 2004, pp. 21-22)

HEALTHCARE/TELEMEDICINE SERVICES AS SUPPORT TO PHC

N-Logue had partnered with doctors, hospitals and other partners, in order to provide healthcare

services and expertise through its kiosks. A web portal had developed a healthcare platform of

information in several local languages: www.webhealthcenter.com/ (Paul, 2004, p. 21)

Videoconference through telemedicine could also play a crucial role and even replace somehow the

consultation with the patient, either for a specific healthcare or for regular healthcare. As the

primary health care (PHCs) clinics were open only few hours per day, telemedicine was somehow

alleviating the spatial divide (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 4; Paul, 2004, p. 21). Doctors

in towns could remotely suggest remedies or medical advices to patients in rural areas based on

their “common ailments such as back ache, head ache, stomach pain which were left without

treatment previously” (Ibid.., p. 11). Furthermore, multi-party video-conferencing could also take

place. It consisted to publicly connect at the same time to multiple villages with a same doctor

away. This way of examination certainly gave still more responsibility and credibility to the doctor.

See below a video-conferencing consultation using the software iSEE for eye care with a partner,

http://www.webhealthcenter.com/

110

the Aravind Eye Hospital, which provides free or low-cost eye care (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran,

and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 35; Paul, 2004, p. 21).

Interactions between the villagers and doctors were more generally supported through the

telemedicine ReMeDi system: “[...] the patient’s blood pressure, temperature and heart beat [were]

acquired locally in the kiosk and made available to the physician at the clinic, in Tirupathur.” (Ibid.,

p. 3) Find below on the left the n-Logue telemedicine operational model Dakshinamoorthy and

Gordon (2007) depicted during their research study (Research Study 3) they conducted in the

village of Thirupathur in 2005 and find below on the right the telediagnostic software working with

the ReMeDi system.

Figure 60 – Remote configuration

(Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 7)

Figure 61 - n-Logue telemedicine model (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 6)

Figure 59 - Remote eye-care consultation (Jhunjhunwala and al, 2004, p. 36)

111

The opportunity cost was not that high between telemedicine and face-to-face meeting with doctors

in the Research Study 3 since villagers have to afford transportation costs and spend time to go to

the hospital, so that “many villagers postponed taking care of a medical problem because of the

opportunity cost” (Ibid., p. 11). The doctors and the villagers, however, generally preferred and

trusted more the direct human relationship: “physician generally prefer[red] to have a first client

interaction in person at Tirupathur, where his primary care clinic is located.” (Ibid., p. 11)

Regarding the operational affordability of the villagers, costs (uploading and downloading of

information from the kiosk) were indeed not that high. There existed nominal fees for the patients

of the telemedicine programme for instance (~Rs. 10) though, in the Research Study 2, most of the

villagers from the Sivaganga District (Tamil Nadu) were very poor, flexible payments could be

considered to alleviate their low affordability (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 12).

Moreover, the doctor was paid a commission based on the telemedicine usage, which could raise up

his own interest in using the system (Ibid., p. 4).

Furthermore, the villagers’ awareness of the kiosk telemedicine services in the villages increased

because of the variety of services provided: “By visiting the kiosks more often, the villagers are

exposed to the health services available. This improves their awareness about general well-being

and the services they can avail from the remote physician.” (Ibid., p. 11)

E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES

The village kiosk also offered to solve up many issues related to remoteness and the resulting lack

of proximity of the village with the government office. To counter that, internet was used as means

to connect villages with the government. E-government services such as birth, death and land

certificates were operated by n-Logue, but the result was, however, not often successful depending

on the district collector in charge of answering queries such as collecting taxes, duties, other

payments and grievances for the government. (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay,

2004, p. 36; Paul, 2004, p. 22)

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UTILITY SERVICES

A photography studio called Chiraag Photo Studio was often installed in n-Logue kiosks and

equipped with a digital camera and a printout machine. This service was very appreciated from

villagers (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 34; Paul, 2004, p. 22).

Others services could derive from the computer usage by villagers such as making greeting cards,

working on desktop publishing (DTP), looking at astrology, playing games, listening to and

watching entertainment, reading online news, writing on discussion forums, etc. Moreover, the

Chiraag radio could also be used and movies could be shared in the kiosk on television or even

computer. (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004, p. 37) There was also a

Chiraag Children’s Center (CCC) for organizing ICT activities for children on Sunday morning and

on weekdays (twice a month) around reading, chatting, gaming, listening and recording songs, etc.

(Paul, 2004, p. 23)

DATA COLLECTION

After consulting references and interviewing some people, it was obvious some socio-economic

characteristics had a significant impact on performance regarding the fact they concerned the kiosk

operator, the service provider or the kiosk itself. The Kiosk Operator was indirectly in charge of

data collection. Data related to land holding, birth and death rates, source and level of income, level

of education, etc. could be gathered through the kiosk operations and valued toward the private and

the public sectors. However, the effectiveness of this service depended more on the capacity and

motivation of the kiosk entrepreneurs. (Jhunjhunwala, Ramachandran, and Bandyopadhyay, 2004,

p. 36)


HUMAN CAPACITY

The human capacity was very important as it constituted the bottom of the business model and the

direct relationship with customers indirectly generating revenues for n-Logue. Villagers were first

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attracted by the opportunity to get a job by applying for becoming kiosk operator. There was also

kind of prestige for helping the community. However, several kiosk entrepreneurs did not

accomplish standardized business hours, which resulted in potential loss of revenues. Therefore,

there resulted a high kiosk operators turnover for n-Logue, which could not do anything because of

the nature of its business model based on franchise agreements, except training sessions for

instance. (Paul, 2004, 16-17)

E-SERVICES HARDLY REPLACE EXISTING SERVICES

N-Logue encountered difficulty to generate revenues from video-conferencing/telemedicine

services. As pointed out in the specific Research Study 3 conducted in 2005 in the Sivagangai

district, these services were dependent of three human capacities which were not fulfilled:

1) Human capacity of the villager and sociocultural beliefs: In the Research Study 3, the

villagers who were illiterate tended to ignore the existence of the kiosk in the village as they

remained skeptical of the advantages they could get provided. More precisely for

telemedicine, it could also be related to their inherited beliefs as Dakshinamoorthy and

Gordon pointed out in the Research Study 3:

Many villagers are illiterate. They have some strong held beliefs about ailments and

successful treatments. For example, many of them believe that a shot is necessary for

curing some common ailments. This attracts them towards the quacks who many time

provide a shot filled with distilled water. (Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, p. 12)

2) Human capacity of the kiosk operator/entrepreneur: Some kiosk entrepreneurs had another

job outside the business scope of the n-Logue kiosk, so that they were not primarily focused

on the kiosk activities itself. There resulted from that situation villagers could not count on

reliable and regular operation hours of the n-Logue kiosk (Ibid., 2007, p. 13).

3) Human capacity of the service provider: In the Research Study 3, there was a problem of

overstrain of the doctors underlined: “many times the physician [had] to visit several

villages during the week in addition to their remote consultation [and] in addition, many

physicians also [had] a regular day job at a hospital or private practice.” (Ibid., 2007, p. 12)

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Given that fact, n-Logue therefore had to count on doctors who were ready to sacrifice time

and money for the benefit of social goals. However, the doctors-to-patients ratio was quite

low. (Ibid., p. 13)

Moreover, n-Logue also encountered difficulty with technology (the ReMeDi system of the

telemedicine service), since it was at its beginning and was therefore not matured. There resulted

connectivity issues, low quality of care measurements and losses of data and time, so that villagers

were finally discouraged to come back and avail this service again (Ibid., 2007, p. 12).

INCLUSION AND PATTERN OF USER

The Research Study 3 on n-Logue’s project in Sustainable Access to Rural Internet (SARI - see

endnotes for information SARIxxiii

) in Tamil Nadu, South India, put forth as key findings from

Rajendra Kumar and Michael Best that the telecenters do not bridge socio-economic inequalities

within communities, as they are used by only one small part of the population user profile belonged

to the more privileged categories of the Indian society (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 1):

male (Figure 39),

young people (Figure 40)

students or relatively more educated (Figure 41),

higher-income household (Figure 42) and

socially advanced community or upward caste (Figure 50, see in section Discussion)

Toyama, Kiri, Menon, Pal, Sethi and Srinivasan (2005) reached the same conclusions regarding

customer demographics based on their general research study (Research Study 6) conducted in

2004-2005 on 150 of Drishtee’s kiosks and 150 of n-Logue’s kiosks:

Kiosk customers tend to be young, with 30% between the ages of 19-25 and another 35%

between 26 and 35. Levels of education are spread roughly evenly across different levels of

accomplishment, although those with less than 4 years of primary schooling and those with

post-graduate degrees are rare. The predominant users of kiosks are students. In fact, in

order to get a reasonable sample of other customers, our surveys were intentionally

restricted to be delivered to a maximum of only two students (out of five respondents) per

kiosk, and all kiosks easily saturated this quota. One interesting fact is that the gender of

115

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kiosk customers very consistently mirrors that of the operator. Overwhelmingly, more girls

and women visit kiosks when the operator is female, and almost no women visit kiosks run

by men. This is likely due to cultural barriers to men and women interacting in one-to-one

outside of familial relationships. (Toyama and al, 2005, pp. 4-5)

Note that a (*) indicates that the proportion of y users is significantly lower than that in the village

population (Kumar and Best, 2006).

Figure 39 - Gender of kiosk users (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 6)

Figure 62 - Age distribution of kiosk users (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 6)

Figure 38 - Overall reach of the kiosks

within their communities (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 5)

Figure 42 - Income distribution of users

(Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 9)

Figure 41 – Educational level of kiosk users (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 10)

Figure 63 - Distribution of religions of

kiosk users (Kumar and Best, 2006, p. 7)

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LACK OF ADEQUATE PARTNERSHIPS/SUPPORT FOR DELIVERY OF SERVICES

N-Logue had developed several partnerships for delivery of services (G2C and B2C) and as

Professor Maitrayee Mukerji (personal communication, December 16, 2014) and Professor

Rajendra Kunar (personal communication, December 21, 2014) admitted, these partnerships did not

really sustain, which caused n-Logue’s difficulty to reach financial sustainability. Steyn gives a

good example in his book ICTs for Global Development and Sustainability about the issue

encountered by n-Logue with partnerships:

For example, partnerships with a private eye hospital at Madurai and with the Tamil Nadu

Agricultural and Veterinary University had virtually ended by the end of 2004 and most of

the kiosks (both Chirag and Dhan36

) had stopped using these partnerships for delivery of

services. […] the main reason for the failure of these partnerships was lack of incentives for

these organizations to continue these partnerships. For example, the additional clientele

that the private eye hospital had hoped to gain did not materialize as there was no regular

follow up by the SARI project officials with these organizations on the services provided by

them. This indicates that the partnerships need to work for the mutual benefit of both sides

for them to be successful in the long-term. (Steyn, 2010, p. 342)

DRIVERS OF FAILURE RATHER THAN DRIVERS OF SUSTAINABILITY

Even though n-Logue was one of the pioneers in achieving ICT4D in rural India through the private

and for-profit model, they have failed to remain sustainable in the sense they are no longer

operational since 2007 (Satyan Mishra, personal communication, December 28, 2014). Therefore, I

have been interested in asking why to my interviewees as I did not think a lot of secondary

resources on the failure of that business model on the internet. Here below, you find the answers I

have been provided by the interviewees who kindly gave me the reasons of n-Logue’s failure. Dr

Maitrayee Mukerji exactly cited me the reasons as follows (personal communication, December 16,

2014):

1. The technology was not viable - Some say that the state (as in government) did not support

in terms of policy, then there were other new telecom service providers, providing the same

36

ICT kiosk SARI project in which n-Logue partnered with an NGO (Dhan Foundation) and others.

117

communication services at lower rate and better speed. There is no systematic study on this

aspect.

2. The business model of n-Logue was closely coupled with the technology - kind of lock-in

and the kiosk owners had to pay license fees with no steady stream of income from kiosks -

so they opted out.

3. Like other similar initiatives e.g. Drishtee - it set up the kiosks just as a standalone venture

and hoped that other institutions would provide the services - which could not happen.”

4. It represented a phase of TC movement in India that led the path to the next one and could

not survive.

5. As concept, n-Logue is not the only one that could not survive, there were others and many

of the private CSCs under the central government funded scheme face the same issue -

however when reasons of success or failure are analyzed, they often revolve around low

literacy, low skills, no policy, etc. But the fact is that they just don't fulfill the needs or

address systemic issues.

Furthermore, Professor Rajendra Kumar (personal communication, December 21, 2014) more

deeply specified the third reason Dr Mukerki had pointed out above concerning the lack of service

provided as most important cause of the failure:

N-Logue was a pioneer in ICT4D initiatives in India. It was able to obtain institutional

support from the government and other stakeholders and tried to create a sustainable

ecosystem around G2C and B2C services through the telecenters. However, it failed to

sustain as the G2C services ecosystem was not well developed due to lack of backend

computerization in government offices. Even the B2C services were not well developed at

that time in terms of their online availability.

We can therefore converge on the assumption that the sustainability failure of n-Logue has been

partly caused by the lack of institutional partnership for service delivery and the lack of institutional

support for e-government services (Steyn, 2010, p. 345). Moreover, we can also mention the

inability of n-Logue to adapt its business model or just the services provided over time to the rural

communities according to their needs and preferences: n-Logue, as rural connectivity provider, just

replicated or scaled its business model, thinking the rural entrepreneur could by itself make the

adaptability to the rural ecosystem of its location environment and context. It simply failed.

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8.3.3 SWOT

Figure 64 - SWOT Analysis of n-Logue (Author, 2014)

119

9. Case study 3: Drishtee


Already in 2000, Drishtee, software and IT company, launched the first telecentre-based e-

governance project (website) in rural India for Gyandoot37

by trying to improve government

services for rural citizens in India, Madhya Pradesh, in partnership with the District Administration

of Dhar (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003).

Cyber Edge and the district administration of Dhar also implied Drishtee for developing an e-

governance intranet project based on private-public partnership. The idea was that the kiosk

database got updated when it was connected to the district server or the web server. On one side, the

district server monitored and administered the kiosks and the district database. On the other side,

the web server coordinated communication and performance between districts. It has been

constituted by three operating parts:

1. The kiosk

2. The district server: local level content provider

3. The web server: national level content provider

Drishtee collaborated on the project during about nine months, after taking over the management of

the initiative and deciding to register as formal company to enter the market of ICT-enabled kiosks

in rural India (Ibid., Parminder and Deepika, 2008)

The Drishtee initiative was born and has therefore been launched in 2000 as a telecentre model in

India. Partnerships with BCG have been conducted at that time in order to evaluate the existing

models and develop and test others. Many similar projects have then started in the northern states of

India. Rapidly, they undertook another e-governance project for the district collector of Sirsa in

Haryana that time. The main issue Drishtee experienced with its two e-governance initiatives since

its inception was that sufficient revenues were though to generate due to the fact there was a lack of

acceptation from the district collector in the sense public employees were reticent to use the new

way of delivering services. It conducted Drishtee to conclude e-governance services should no more

37

means “purveyor of knowledge” in English

120

count as the main source of revenues for their ICT-enabled kiosk business model and other value-

added services should be integrated to the bunch of provided services to the rural communities

(Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003; Parminder and Deepika, 2008).

Therefore, the organization started with providing private services likely to generate more income.

In that sense, Drishtee launched a next venture in Assam in 2003 with the aim at “[…] fulfilling

needs that were common across different contexts” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 117). The new characteristic

that stood out of the business model of Drishtee was its replicability, since the services provided by

Drishtee could be henceforth implemented in different socio-economic contexts and e-governance

services could also be deployed as long as partnerships with the public sector were made possible.

One big challenge Drishtee succeeded very soon to overcome was the barrier of poor internet

connectivity in rural India. Drishtee has been able to become a networked platform’s provider of

private companies for serving the unreached. However, in 2006, Drishtee decided to change its

business strategy from a telecentre-based model to a rural distribution network model, even though

its business model was financially sustainable, because the company was not satisfied by the

number of people reached in rural India. While the company generated enough revenues to sustain,

only few people could reach these services (around 10% according to Satyan Mishra, personal

communication, December 28, 2014).

Nowadays, Drishtee remains sustainable, even though its business model is no longer focused on

ICT; just few businesses use ICT like banking points, citizen civic centers, etc., but they do not

gather anymore plenty of diverse services provided at the same place as it used to be in the

telecentre-based model. The new kind of business scope and social desire of Drishtee is becoming

the biggest rural distribution network in rural India by empowering and supporting its community

eco-system.

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9.2 Business Model

Vision: Envision a world where all communities are empowered to achieve shared

prosperity

Mission: Collaborate with marginal communities to develop and nurture rural

enterprises and support the community eco-system.

Type of private model: Franchise model

Scope of Coverage: More than 1,132 telecentre-based kiosks38

in 2006 through 24 districts and

12 states of India (Mukerji, 2013, p. 117).

More than 5,000 villages served in 2012 with the current business model

which has been set up in 2006/2007 and counts on more than 14,000 kiosk

entrepreneurs (Drishtee, 2014; Oxhip, 2014).

Status: Operational; since 2006/2007, the business model changed from telecentre

based to rural distribution network based.

The telecentre-based business model

Originally, the primary focus of the Drishtee business model was providing e-government services

from villages to villages. It evolved as we said in the previous section into “[…] a network

orchestrator with a mission to create and implement a sustainable, scalable platform for

entrepreneurship to enable the development of rural economy and society through the use of ICT”

(Mukerji, 2013, p. 117).

From the very beginning, Drishtee aimed at “connecting India village by village” (Drishtee, 2005).

Originally, it had been launched to provide e-government services to rural villages (e.g., birth

certificate applications, vehicle licensing, etc.). Rapidly, this ICT project took importance and its

38

transformed into banking points and others since 2007 (Satyan Mishra, personal communication, December 28, 2014)

122

business model evolved. Step by step, partnerships have been concluded with banking and other

industries in order to serve the needs of villages. The Drishtee value propositions are conveyed

through a fee-based and ICT-enabled private service delivery channel based on a sustainable and

replicable model.

Drishtee set up and provided an ICT-enabled platform for delivering fee-based services in rural

India, supported by private and public partners. More especially, the telecentre-based business

model of Drishtee worked on franchising ICT kiosks providing the necessary hardware and the

financial assistance through Drishtee’s web portal. The value propositions Drishtee wanted rural

India benefits from its ICT-enabled kiosks were as follows:

1. Increase the per capita income

2. Reduce the cost of delivering services versus its conventional system

3. Streamline the allocation of villagers’ revenues for rural development

The Drishtee business model could be structured into three parts: Drishtee, the Vistaar Block

Channel Partner (VBCP) and Village Kiosks, even though either the VBCP operated the village

kiosk or the local kiosk entrepreneur could take the responsibility of the channel partner (Bhatnagar,

Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003, Mukerji, 2013, pp. 116-120)

1. Drishtee had an head office at Noida and branch offices in the states it operated.

2. The Vistaar Block Channel Partner (district operator or hub owner) was the name by

which Drishtee replicated its business model in rural India. The VBCP took care of the

region in which Drishtee operated by identifying and understanding the local context of the

rural area concerned. In that sense, the VBCP had to support Drishtee in providing logistics

on site, finding potential entrepreneurs and executing marketing and sales, etc.

3. A Drishtee village kiosk entrepreneur operating in a location of generally more than 5,000

people. Market places or other gathering places in the village were preferred locations to set

up the kiosk location. It was up to the kiosk owner and to decide, but it remained critical to

the potential of the kiosk to generate revenues and be sustainable. The kiosk entrepreneur

called Soochak owned and operated the kiosk, after being selected by the local community.

Drishtee sought, identified and shortlisted possible candidates during a selection process calling a

gramsabhaxxiv

, even though the process depended more on the village context: newspapers could

123

display job advertisements, people in charge of communication channels in village (teachers,

fertilizer seller, etc.) could be approached or potential candidates could also be invited to meet with

kiosk operators and Drishtee field representatives. The conditions to fulfill in order to apply for

being an entrepreneur were the following ones (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003;

Mukerji, 2013):

formal education (10 years completed);

written and oral English language;

computer skills; and

sales & marketing skills.

However, as Drishtee encountered difficulty to judge on the last criterion, they decided to adapt its

final selection process with its subscription system by making the deal that the candidate selling

more subscription was the one finally selected to operate the kiosk. There were two main reasons

that could explain that (Mukerji, 2013):

1. Lower difficulty to judge on the ability and efficiency of candidates before testing them

2. Higher motivation because of competition between the candidates to inform and convince

citizen about the Drishtee kiosk (awareness and attraction) in order to conclude subscription

(loyalty).

The kiosk operator of the Vistaar Block Channel Partner (VBCP) was responsible for identifying

the services to get provided fitting the best with the context of the village embedded in the

requirement needs of its inhabitants. The selection and training of kiosk operators needed Drishtee

to take time. Indeed, Drishtee was not going and investing anywhere no matter how; characteristics

in the villages and operators have to be considered such as having a population greater than 5,000

villagers, 12-year-experienced and educated operators, etc. (Mukerji, 2013).

After recruited, the kiosk entrepreneur was afforded a technology and marketing training at the

district office of Drishtee. During this group training, the kiosk entrepreneur had the opportunity to

network with the other kiosk entrepreneurs of the same district. The kiosk entrepreneur next took

the ownership of the village kiosk. The kiosk was generally managed with help of family, relatives

and paid staff (Ibid.). The kiosk entrepreneur took the responsibility of managing the village kiosk.

He had to pay around Rs. 60,000 to be the kiosk owner. Once done, the revenues from the ICT-

124

enabled kiosk were generated from kiosk operators (on average Rs. 5,000-6,000 per month),

contributing directly to who had to pay a monthly fee and a per-transaction cost. The kiosk

entrepreneur had two financial contributions to pay to Drishtee (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and

Kanungo, 2003):

1. the license fee of Rs. 10,000;

2. 20 percent of his commercial income.

Drishtee provided different services like e-education, e-agriculture, e-health, insurance, e-

government and e-commerce services. It was up to the kiosk owner who was the kiosk entrepreneur

to decide what services were appropriate to get provided and when according to the immediate

revenues they could generate and relatively to the needs and requirement of the village targeted. the

The kiosk owners could also increase their revenues in selling non-ICT related products and

services fast moving consumer goods (FMCGs). In that sense, the kiosks were really popular as

place for rural retail needs in the village (Parminder and Deepika, 2008).

The Drishtee kiosk at Kesarpurxxv

(Uttar Pradesh, India), in the Research Study 4, had been

formally registered in December 2004 in the name of a male entrepreneur belonging to the

dominant Kurmi community/caste (traditional landowners and cultivators). He was well known in

the village, so that it could help Drishtee for generating awareness. Mukerji (2013, p. 124)

described the kiosk location as follows:

The Patel Drishtee Soochna Kendra was located in a rental shop at the market and was

adjacent to the telephone exchange, and the two bank branches. The main shop housed the

computer and other equipment. The generator was kept inside the shop on the left. The shop

on the right was the small classroom for the ‘theory’ classes. Other shops in the lane

included a tailor shop, the welder and iron works man. A running verandah in front of the

shops created a common space – people came and sat, waited for their turn, read newspaper

and sometimes studied.

Mukerji (2013, p. 124) explained that for instance in the Drishtee kiosk at Kesarpur (Uttar Pradesh),

soil testing could be provided as an agriculture extension service by private fertilizer companies.

The most popular services were though digital passport photography (61 percent of use), digital

photostat copies of applications and forms (41 percent of use) and checking examination results on

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the internet one or twice times in a year (27 percent of use). As the two most used services were

offline services (passport photo and photostat) and e-government services (passport, bank account,

loan, forms, applications, etc.) by low classes (especially for applying in welfare schemes) and by

middle classes (especially for job applications), Internet or computer-related services were

consequently not really requested by most of the socio-economic classes, except for accessing

examination results and for computer education by people with higher education (more than 9-10

years). The reason why digital photo and photocopy were very appreciate was there were no shops

in the surroundings of the village providing such services in order to help villagers for opening a

bank account, for availing loans and for completing forms or applications.

From telecentre-based to rural distribution network business model

As Drishtee’s co-founder, Satyan Mishra (personal communication, December 28, 2014), told me

during interview, they changed their business model from a telecentre-based to a rural distribution

network model by “start[ing] from scratch” because they felt they lacked impact with a business

model only focus on ICT:

Our experience with ICT in villages has been mixed and we have been very grateful and

very happy about the model that we pursued back in 2003-2004, which continued in 2006, it

was not the fact it was not sustainable, it was clearly sustainable and we had a sustainable

business plan to pursue and take the total numbers to 100’000 centers. The trouble actually

was in terms of the impacts, I personally was not very sure about the deep impact which

ICT can have in the village, because it was a kiosk, it was a great service in dealing points,

but it was ineffective without a physical dashboard. What you could provide is information,

what you could provide is perhaps some services, […], but it was difficult to run a very

impactful business model only on the virtual platform; that was the reason why we chose

to add more. I don’t think we abandoned the ICT business model, we stop to call ourselves

as an ICT organization because I believe it was not the intent, it was not IT the ‘end’ we

were pursuing, it was more the ‘means’ and not the ‘end’ […]

More precisely, Satyan Mishra (Ibid.) pointed out the motive which made Drishtee change its

business model (studies on impact of Drishtee in villages), even though it was financially

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sustainable (investors came) and successful (Drishtee received plenty of awards) at that time, and

the reason why they decided to start over from scratch:

I think 2006 was the year, where lots of things happened, we got a lot of awards during this

year, we got investments […] and it was also the year when we incurred some charges to

spend time in the village and we could realize what we were providing had a leveraged

impact, it was only the top 10-20% of the village population […]. We had not just started

Drishtee to just develop a business model for assets, it was all about the impact and the

community, and Drishtee realized that we were not creating that impact […]. We were all

disappointed, we were very young, and did not want to kind of just scratch the surface, we

really wanted to go deeper […]

In 2006, they therefore decided to change the business model and the strategy itself. Satyan Mishra

(Ibid.) explained me it was not an easy process and that it is still ongoing. He also told me they had

helped the Government in designing the recommendations for the Common Service Centers

(CSC’s) under its National e-Governance Plan (NeGP):

We did relook at the strategy in 2006 and the actual changes started happening from there

and continued until about 2009, because we realized what more we could do, because three

years to build an internet business model of supply chain still had [been] very unstabilized

and I would not say that it is as stable as the ICT business model we had earlier, but the ICT

part of the business continues […] The Government started ICT itself, and looked at n-

Logue model, Drishtee model, and we were part of government Committees which did

recommend 100’000 [common service] centers across in India.

However, I wanted to know why Drishtee decided to make that turnaround decision at that moment,

when their business model was financially sustainable and had been awarded several time. Satyan

Mishra (Ibid.) then answered me:

I feel like it is the best time to look at the business model […] because what we are doing

now is something which has taken a lot of time […] but stronger business model as

compared to what we had earlier, […] turning away from a very successful future at that

point, because now we are much more impactful. […] It was basically a kind of social

question we had to answer: do we continue to focus on our own business or on the business

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of the franchisees. We did kind of find that as a difficult question to answer, especially after

investments that we had taken […].

Satayan Mishra (Ibid.) explained me next what the telecentres became with the new business model

of Drishtee, which consist in several types of kiosks focused each one on one type of service. Some

still need ICT for running, especially the banking points, which are operated in partnership with

State Bank of India39

:

Several of them are now banking points, these are IT-enabled, banking extensions of the

largest bank in India, it’s a public bank, government owned bank which has its presence in

villages, and, we, Drishtee’s ICT points have become extension points […]

Furthermore, Satyan Mishra (Ibid.) confessed me the efforts for computer educations had been

stopped for the following reason:

We felt that computer education was basically taking the people away from the village. It

was difficult to find a job in the village after computer education, so we have consciously

decided to come out of it. It was a running business for us, it was really a painful decision,

but it was really important for us, because […] looking at developing village like youth for

its sustainability. […] We don’t want people to move out of the village […]

Therefore, given that interview with Satyan Mishra but also the literature review done, I can

conclude there is a real willingness at Drishtee to create an impact in rural India, not only serving

people with services and products for generating revenues but by empowering them. This vision has

been

Drishtee is now operating on the basis of a rural distribution network and not any more as

telecentre. They are still providing services for health, educatoin, banking, finance incusion, and has

rural retail points and rural BPOs. ICT is not the main part of their business, except I would say for

banking points and rural BPOs according to my skype interview with the founder, M. Satyan

Mishra. As he told me during the skype call, banking points40

have been launched by Drishtee

through a partnership in 2006 with State Bank of India, in order to provide banking services in rural

39

http://www.drishtee.com/strategic-solutions/financial-inclusion/ 40

http://www.drishtee.com/partners/our-partners/

http://www.drishtee.com/strategic-solutions/financial-inclusion/

http://www.drishtee.com/partners/our-partners/

128

India (last-mile banking network). The idea is to connect villagers with the bank through the kiosk

entrepreneur which uses the technology as physical interfacefor the customer; it can enable villagers

to open bank accounts, save money and make transactions. BPOs have just started to be a focus in

the scope of businesses of Drishtee (pilot project has been successful with digitization services

provided to the private and the public sector). Satyan Mishra told me he hoped a lot from this

project as it is a real means according to him to keep the villagers working in the village, instead of

empowering them for reaching the outcome they finally migrate to urban areas at the end and that

rural areas always remain poor and marginalized.


9.3.1 Achievements

PLANNING AND EVALUATION

Drishtee did a lot to impact the rural communities the most efficient way they could. To reach their

objectives of financial sustainability, they put in place several programmes/initiatives (Parminder

and Deepika, 2008; Liyanage, 2009, Drishtee, 2014):

Mission 6K: An institutional mission Drishtee decided to launch in order to ensure its kiosk

entrepreneurs to be financially sustainable. Drishtee designed the bunch of services the

kiosk entrepreneurs had to market in order to earn a sufficient revenue of US $124 (“6K” or

6,000 Rs. Ind.). The amount was based on estimations that covered operational

expenditures, profit and salary: US $93 (Rs. 4,500) for the kiosk owner + a profit of US $31

(Rs. 1,500) for Drishtee = US $124 (Rs. 6,000) for the kiosk.

ICT Segmentation Model: Planning tool developed by Drishtee in order to assess the

viability of a business activity in a particular location for a telecentre they wanted to set up.

The model proposed three variables: a) Rural dynamics, b) Rural economics, and c) Rural

infrastructure. A scale from 0 to 10 for each variable permitted to evaluate any location on

its socio-cultural and socio-economic characteristics.

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Rural ICT lifecycle: Impact assessment from selection of district to selection of the kiosk

owner and the beginning of the operations. Drishtee for instance collaborated with the

sarpanch41

of the panchayat42

to identify potential candidates to operate the kiosk.

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF DRISHTEE (FRANCHISING AGENCY)

In 2006, they broke even and the next years they made money each time. ICT was an easier

business even if does not impact that much. The distribution business is a very complex and

challenging business, especially for a social enterprise like Drishtee with limited capital. Satyan

Mishra said that he thought that from a future perspective they had taken the right decision to go

from “only ICT” to “ICT plus the physical supply chain” even though Drishtee lost money for

doing the turnaround. He considered the business stable for three years now, even if they did not

grew a lot since (Satyan Mishra, personal communication, December 28, 2014).

41

The Sarpanch is the head of the panchayat. (Parminder and Deepika, 2008, p. 2) 42

The Panchayat is an administrative unit of the government at the village level. (Parminder and Deepika, 2008, p. 2)

Figure 65 - Impact assessment (Drishtee, 2014)

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PHYSICAL HUMAN CAPACITY AS NECESSITY

Drishtee, through its new business model, is using ICT as a tool, support and differentiator to its

core activity, the rural distribution of services (goods and services). Satyan Mishra (personal

communication, December 28, 2014) explained me what Drishtee had learnt with its experience and

expertise was that “every franchisee is associated with a particular service” Villagers will take a lot

of time to appreciate a service provided otherwise. If a franchisee has a franchise point on a specific

service in the village, “then it will be easier and better for the community to understand and

appreciate”.

PHYSICAL CAPACITY AS NECESSITY AND ICT AS MEANS, ENABLER AND

DIFFERENTIATOR

Satyan Mishra (personal communication, December 28, 2014) explained me Drishtee, through its

new business model, is using ICT as a tool, support and differentiator to its core activity, the rural

distribution of services (goods and services):

1. great capacity building tool; it connects, makes aware and potential (new design, new

lifestyles, etc.) (what Drishtee is doing already)

2. great organizational management information system (MIS) to know what they have earned,

what they have spent, how good the business is and access loans which are very difficult to

get for woman enterprises (where Drishtee has done a lot of work)

3. great platform to enable market access and penetration through e-commerce (where Drishtee

has to do a lot of work)

SOCIO-ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

Drishtee provided an e-commerce platform called Drishteehaat, which was kind of marketplace,

generally for rural artisan, generally women, in order to sell their products: www.drishteehaat.com

(Liyanage, 2009). There was the posssibility to upload images and information about their the

products, and the e-comemrce platform enabled the artisans to reach more people (worlwide web)

and potentially to earn more money.

http://www.drishteehaat.com/

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Moreover, the young generation was really interested in the computer education programmes.

Drishtee had launched a very famous programmme called Drishtee’s Centre for Education and

Entrepreneurship Programme (CEEP) which helped to empower people, especially the youth of the

village through computer literacy education Computer literacy training. They could also ask the

kiosk operator questions for career councelling for instance. Self-help groups in agriculture could

also be interested in the services provided and the information they could get through the kiosk with

their relatives and friends. Information on crop prices could permit the famrers to know exactly

when to sell; they were empowered since they knew the real value of their produce and were able to

avoid corruped and unfair intermediaries (Bhatnagar, Dewan, Torres and Kanungo, 2003;

Parminder and Deepika, 2008).


SOCIO-CULTURAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC INCLUSION REGARDING THE

TELECENTRE-BASED SERVICES OF THE FORMER BUSINESS MODEL OF DRISHTEE

(RELATED TO A SPECIFIC RESEARCH STUDY FROM MAITRAYEE MUKERJI)

The results and conclusions you find below have been established by Maitrayee Mukerji (2013, pp.

124-130) based on a specifi research study. I use this section to comment them, in order to depict

the socioeconomic and socio-cultural patterns of telecentre-based services that happened in a

specific Drishtee kiosk. Mukerji observed during its fieldwork in 2006 (Research Study 5) on a

sample of households users of the Drishtee Kiosk at Kesarpur (Uttar Pradesh), socio-economic

patterns of use of the village. One of the first observations of Mukerji regarding socio-economic

categories was that “[…] 46 households or around 70 percent had availed at least one service at the

kiosk” but “[…] the usage pattern differed across services […] – low, low-middle, middle and high

socio-economic status was 50, 67, 76 and 92 [percent of user households] respectively” (Mukerji,

2013, p. 125). According to the statistics gathered in the sample, the low socio-economic class

counted the more people without any service availed at the information kiosk (Mukerji, 2013, p.

126):

- 10 [of the total 20] households belonged to low socio-economic category.

- 19 [of the total 20] households either did not own any land or owned less than 2.5 acres.

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The respective size of the farming activity also played a role: “The percentage of user households

among landless was 50 and thereafter it was 68, 83, 100 and 100 for marginal, small, middle and

big farmers respectively” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 126). In the same perspective, an asset index permitted

to distribute the households regarding the number of assets they owned: “[…] the households with

less assets access and use telecenters less than others” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 126).

Maitrayee Mukerji (2013, pp. 124-133) also defined five important socio-economic variables to

define the pattern of household use of the Drishtee Information Kiosk: the occupation, the caste, the

religion, the education and the sexe:

1. Just before we spoke about the farming that remains the major occupation. All other kind of

occupational categories used the services provided in the kiosk as they were useful, except

carpenters, masons and drivers who were 73 percent (on the basis of 11 people in this

category) without any services availed. Other occupation category (businessman, farmers,

government and others) all had about more than 70 percent of user household, except the

daily wage labour (55 percent of user household).

2. The castes were also an important indicator of the socio-economic status of a household user

in the sense it determines whether a caste is forward (Forward Castes such as Brahmins,

Pandits and Baniyas who counted to around 15 Hindi people in the village) or backward

(Other Backward Castes engaged in Zari-relatedwork (generally tailoring, designing or

embroidering), Schedule Castes, and still lower Castes). Castes were generally clustered

between each others by “kuccha brick-laid lanes” in the village (Mukeri, 2013, p. 122), so

that social interactions between them were very limited. Forward castes had the higher

pecentage of usage compared to backward castes, even though only 3 househols had been

selected in the sample (representativeness but non-significativeness for conclusions).

3. The religious communities were finally an important element of difference regarding

segregation: “Comparatively, Hindus were more segregated in terms of caste and

occupation” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 121). Only the Schedule caste among the three castes of the

Hindus (General, OBC and SC) had a low percentage of kiosk users, while the only

representative caste of the Muslims (OBC), mainly active in agriculture and embroidering,

had a very low percentage of kiosk users (41 percent) compared to the same caste of the

Hindus (90 percent). Mukerji explained it was related to the occupations of the two religious

communities:

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Hindus were primarily farmers who availed agriculture loan from the bank or credit

societies. To do so, they required passport size photo and photostat of documents;

the two main services available at the Drishtee kiosk. On the other hand, Muslim

households were primarily engaged in ‘Zari/Zardozi’ related work. The majority of

them worked as ‘karigars’ or embroiders for the large business houses and did not

necessarily avail loan from formal sources. (Mukerji, 2013, p. 127)

4. The educational status played an important role over generationsas on the percentage of

user households: “As the educational status increased, there was an increase in the

percentage of user households” (Mukerji, 2013, p. 127). Moreover, during the field research,

when the households have been distributed according to the highest level of education in the

family, graduates (12 people in the sample) and post-graduates (11 people in the sample) of

households have been identified to be the only ones to use computer education services at

the Drishtee Kiosk, with 50 percent (6 people) and 18 percent (2 people) of usage

respectively for a total base of 8 users for that service (from 66 people in the sample).

Graduates and post-graduates were the most important categories of users for examination

results as well.

5. The gender was finally an important variable to take into account if we want to follow the

principle of universal access in rural India: Women used very less the ICT-enabled kiosk,

only for absolute necessity.

As Maitrayee Mukerji concluded in her study, in Kesarpur, the gender, the caste and the religion

were the three most important criteria to impact the difference in kiosk service use between the

households. By the way, no caste was denied to access the ICT-enabled center, so that Maitrayee

Mukerji concluded in that case study neither the caste nor the religion were considered as social

barriers and consequently discriminated. She said the kioks played certainly a significant role by its

location or the kind of services it provided (maybe more adapted to the castes’occupation such as

soil testing services for instance).

An important lesson we can get here from that specific case is ICT-enabled kiosks cannot solve up

magically the divides in some contexts. Indeed, ICT even tends to increase the divides between the

socio-economic and socio-cultural groups: Those who get access to ICT increase the digital divide

compared to those who don’t (Tim Unwin, personnal communication, January 5, 2014).

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FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY OF THE ENTREPRENEURS

Satyan Mishra (personal communication, December 28, 2014) explained me the lack of control

Drishtee had on the entrepreneurs with the franchise business model by the past:

I can tell you for sure that 20 percent of our entrepreneurs at any point of time were not

sustainable; It was not just the issue of the choice of the entrepreneur, but also the choice of

the area and the geography, because all jobs have all not enough needs for ICT-enabled

services.

He further explained me the importance to focus on the generation of income, what Drishtee has

done now with the new business model focused on the rural distribution network:

It is important to provide income to the community and not just savings,which come out

localizing services; income generation was very important, which we realize and we are

focusing our rest of energy on.

I also asked him what they did with the entrepreneurs to make them manage better the kiosks. He

answered me about trainings and programme initiatives launched by Drishtee

In 2003, we launched a programme called Mission 6K […] in which we ensured that every

entrepreneur was capable of earning Rps. 6,000 per month out of Drishtee. This Mission 6K

was also supported by World Bank, then they gave us an award it was for that particular

Mission 6K, which we had. That programme led us to develop lots of services […] the core

benchmark of judgment was on the basis of small fees that they were paying us on a monthly

basis. It was called […] We encouraged them to keep time on how much they are earning. It

was very clear to us based on the data that we used connect: How many of them are earning

[…] All the data was being tracked, and we could make an assumption. It was not like we

would be absolutly accurate but we could make an assumption on how much they were

earning. At least, there was a minimum earning they were having. It was a good indicator

for us to know the income level of our entrepreneurs.

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REAL EMPOWERMENT EFFECT ON THE RURAL COMMUNITIES

As Satyan Mishra (personnal communication, December 28, 2014) told me, ITC-enabled kiosks are

still very “powerful tools” as the entrepreneur can provide information and services to villagers.

However, he also mentionned me during the interview the fact it is not enough to provide ICT; a

physical network has to be built so that the franchise business model is holistic enough to serve at

best the needs and requirements of the rural communities:

The part we have taken is a more difficult part, we don’t want to stop at just the information,

but would ensure that every village stands on its own feets. For that we have do a lot more

than just develop virtual ICT networks. Therefore, we would try to have a very strong supply

chain, a physical network along with the ICT network as a complement to each other.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Infrastructure always remains an issue (connectivity and electricity). It was more inherent to the

telecentre-based business model Drishtee previously had. Now they have started since 2007 to

integrate the physical layer (distribution supply chain), many businesses don’t rely anymore on ICT

and there is therefore more reliability in the services provided and trust in Drishtee’s kiosk

entrepreneurs as villagers directly make business with them (retail points) or come for healthcare

for instance (women’s empowerment programme where women are trained to assist villagers on the

health issues they have).

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9.3.3 SWOT (on the telecentre-based model of Drishtee)

Figure 66 - SWOT Analysis of the telecentre-based initiative from Drishtee (Author,

2014)

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10. Discussion

The cases I have presented work on the basis of business models generating economic profit for the

agency it stems from and delivering social empowerment for the community it serves. They are

operated through the private and for-profit model and pretend to make social business. I have been

able to identify their main features through my readings and the interviews conducted:

1. They are launched, supervised, coordinated and driven by central agencies, either private

enterprises (n-Logue and Drishtee) or ventures (ITC e-Choupal), which design the business

model at scale, generally by themselves (top-down approach), to be replicated as easily and

quickly as possible.

2. They are operated by private entrepreneurs, which have the responsibility for managing by

themselves the village kiosk and for playing the role of intermediary for the agency it serves,

so that the local performance of the business model partly depends on their own capability

to drive the business;

3. They combine economic and social goals by trying to answer a socio-economic context,

even though the economic goals are the priority in order to guarantee financial sustainability

of the business model;

By gaining access to telecom and Internet services through an ICT-enabled kiosk, it is therefore to

logically admit the rural areas should get socio-economic benefits from the information and

knowledge ICT provides them. They should be definitely empowered and their quality of life as

well. However, even though positive observations can be done at certain points regarding the

private and for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks, several common critical issues can be raised,

too.

10.1 Digital divide

One of the first questions I asked myself when starting this Master thesis was whether ICT

initiatives, especially ICT-enabled kiosks, could bridge the digital divide between rural and urban

areas in India. I had thought ICT could help in alleviating digital divide in the sense it could provide

138

access and use to ICT in a shared-access facility to villagers. In that sense, I found out in my

literature review authors depicting the advent of ICT-enabled initiatives in villages as bridging

institutional gaps, as for e-government and commercial services for instance: “ In many cases, a

kiosk not only brings the first PC to a village, but the first tangible presence of state government or

local enterprise.” (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 6)

However, during my literature review, I also read several authors mitigating the impact of ICT-

enabled initiatives in bridging digital divide, among them I picked up an interesting quote from

Rajindra Ariyabandu in his paper Role of Telecentres as Knowledge Networks: Successes and

Challenges, which reported the efforts embodied in ICT4D initiatives had not really been that

successful in reaching the unreached and bridging the digital divide:

Conceptually, telecentres should be accessible and affordable to those who are

marginalized and unable to afford the facility individually. At present the differential

adoption of the Internet facility has created a digital divide within nations and between the

developed and developing nations. Provision of telecentres is expected to bridge this gap.

However, only a fraction of the poor have access to telecentres in the efforts to reduce the

digital divide (Rogers and Shukla, 2001). According to the International Telecommunication

Union (ITU), the magnitude of the digital divide has remained unchanged from 2002 to

2007, in spite of significant improvement in ICT development among the developing nations

(ITU 2009). (Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 2)

I decided hence to ask some of my interviewees the question as well, in order to get their feedback

whether ICT-enabled initiatives could bridge the gap or not. They all converged on the idea that

ICT initiative could not bridge digital divide by itself, but it could as enabler or facilitator.

Maitrayee Mukerki first answered that question by telling me ICT is not the “end” for bridging

digital divide but that other critical factors have to be taken into consideration:

I don’t think ICTs as tools can alleviate the gaps – all of which are more systemic in issues –

policies, institutional structures, capabilities, opportunities etc. ICTs can help only when the

first level conditions are available. For example ICTs enhance learning in rural schools

only when the basic infrastructure is in place. (Maitrayee Mukerji, personal communication,

December 17, 2014)

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Jai Asundi next argued positively on the role ICT could play as facilitator by underlining the

importance of wide access and appropriate content in addressing the people:

ICT is the only way given the vastness of India and the lack of resources to bridge it in any

of the traditional ways. In many cases the divide is due to lack of access and appropriate

exposure. Once that hurdle is overcome the divide will be easier to overcome. (Jai Asundi,

personal communication, December 21, 2014)

Tim Unwin finally raised that same processes cause the differences between towns and countryside

and difference of connectivity, and explained me that digital divide could in some ways be crossed

and bridged by development initiatives. Regarding the capacity of ICT to bridge by itself

inequalities and divides, Professor Unwin stated like the other interviewees:

ICT is an accelerator. […] All the evidences say that it increases rather than reduces [the

divisions] […]. The differences between men and women have been [for example] a bit more

significant. […] ICT still have potential to change things, but let by itself ICT increases the

inequalities. (Tim Unwin, personal communication, January 5, 2015)

10.2 Socio-cultural and socio-economic empowerment

It was amazing to learn during my work that plenty of ICT initiatives (national, regional and local)

had been implemented since 1990’s in different regions of India in terms of e-agriculture, e-health,

e-education, e-governance, etc. by different types of agency (public sector, private sector, civil

society organizations and private-public partnerships) and had led to different outcomes in terms of

socio-economic empowerment. A knowledge community can emerge from the access, use and share

of information and knowledge between villagers for answering contextual issues related to their

local ecosystem. Villagers can especially learn in areas they are concerned about: agriculture,

health, education, etc. and ICT can in that case empower the less informed and educated. It is

especially the opportunity to get in touch with the knowledge world that mainly interest the young

generation (main users).

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The kiosks have hence the important mission to open the world of knowledge economy to large

number of poor and disadvantaged people who could not get access to ICT individually and

facilitate their access to services:

In many cases, a kiosk brings to the villager information that once was practically

unavailable, and services that took days of costly travel are now within biking. One study43

showed that each kiosk typically saves a village $15,000 annually in costs of trips into town

and lost wages. (Toyama and al, 2004, pp. 4- 5)

Moreover, resulting from the ICT4D movement and transformational discourse of the 2000’s, they

have been considered as “tools” for empowering the poorest people, the women and other

minorities which were excluded from the knowledge society before the kiosk implementation

because of the existing divides in India between areas, gender, castes, socio-economic classes and

literate/non-literate people

As Maitrayee Mukerji mentioned, on the basis of her literature review taking into account the

patterns of access and use (Dossani, Jhaveri and Misra, 2005; Pal, 2007; Tiwari, 2008, cited by

Mukerji, 2013, p. 50), the socio-economic impacts resulting from telecenters at any location have

however been limited. As Mukerji then explained:

A general observation is that it is difficult to establish the causal link between provision of

technology, information and services to specific socio-economic indicators. (Mukerji, 2013,

p .50)

Based on four types of indicators (venue performance and sustainability, users, usage patterns and

downstream impacts), Sey and Fellows (2009) concluded similarly to a limited and elusive evidence

on downstream impacts and noted the difficulty to identify and measure the impact of the public

access ICT model. Similarly, Tim Unwin (personal communication, January 5, 2015) told me

during the interview that “there is no consistent mechanism for evaluating success […] Judging

success is challenging.” We have therefore to keep in mind no best practice does exist.

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Based on a 2004 study by Digital Partners and Intel that polled 30 kiosks in three states with village populations averaging 5000 residents. Source: Toyama and al, 2004, p. 5

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The promise of rural empowerment envisioned by ICT4D has therefore not been always possible

depending on the way the business model of the ICT-enabled initiative was designed and

implemented by the network agency, managed by the kiosk entrepreneur and supported by

stakeholder partnerships, but in some cases, however, initiatives really empowered disadvantaged

groups at certain extends (i.e. e-governance project, e-literacy initiative) as Rajindra Ariyabandu

underlined:

Telecentre networks have taken the social responsibility of empowering rural women. In an

inclusive Indian society, women are suppressed in the public domain. Role of the telecentre

network and the involvement of the government have created a space for women to be active

partners in the new information society. In Kerala, participation of women in the e-literacy

programme has increased due to the confidence built by the state and the telecentre

network. (Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 17)

The empowerment could also be for women the result of taking the opportunity of the kiosk

management, in order to enhance her inclusiveness in the knowledge society as female and attract

other women in the kiosk for them to be empowered as well:

Many kiosk operators are women, and for them, the kiosk represents an empowering

livelihood outside of traditional village roles. (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 6)

Regarding now the possibility to have a private agency running a business exclusively focused on

social development goals rather than on business goals, Professor Unwin answered me as follows:

I can come close to arguing that actually, it’s almost impossible for the private sector [by

itself] to deliver solutions in rural areas, because that is the private sector that is causing

the differences between rural and urban areas in the first place. (Tim Unwin, personal

communication, December 5, 2014)

Therefore, if ICT only serves the business model for private and economic interests, it does not

make any sense for socio-economic development of “trickle-down” communities. I really think this

could be the case of ITC Limited which is owned by corporate shareholders whose main interest is

return on investments (ROI). In the case of Drishtee, I am personally convinced after my literature

review and the interviews conducted, it is truly a social enterprise: it is not looking for maximizing

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profit but rather for maximizing empowerment impact, even though they take into account

financials to remain operationally sustainable over time.

10.3 Scalability

Regarding scalability, Professor Unwin told me most of the initiatives are designed and run for

some village as pilot project, and that they then do not work for thousands as they are not designed

at scale. He explained me that as follows: “You actually have to design a solution at scale […] You

have got to deliver to one thousands, how are we going to do it?” (Tim Unwin, personal

communication, January 5, 2015)

However, I asked myself whether the franchise model was the adequate model for scaling a

business model. Satyan Mishra (personal communication, December 28, 2014) told me he believed

“franchising business is perhaps something which all of us have learnt out of ICT, it has been a

great gift of ICT to all social organizations.” He continued by arguing “franchising in villages is

perhaps the only way you can make a business model sustainable” and finally told me franchising

was the key to scalability of Drishtee: “We are still completely focused on the franchising business;

Whatever can be franchised, can be scaled, that is the mantra that we have.”

Therefore, during the interview with Professor Unwin, I asked him if the franchise model was the

best model according to his expertise to scale a business in rural India. He logically and simply

answered me he didn’t like “best” and “to scale” but that “good practices” in default of “best

practice” could be helpful for designing initiatives:

There are a lot of good models and good practices that people can learn from and design

the practice that works best, if you like, in their own context […] We should have good

practices that people could draw up. (Tim Unwin, personal communication, December 5,

2014)

C.K. Prahalad, Professor in Corporate Strategy, raised the same observation in the foreword of the

book Making the Connection: Scaling telecenters for development (Fillip and Foote, 2007) by

enlightening the importance to consider the business environment first:

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There is no “correct” way to implement a telecenter, no single “best” business model, and

no “perfect” combination of features. Each environment is different, and the local players

need to know their audience, determine their objectives, and seize the opportunities that best

match local conditions—this is “consumer-centric” design at its best. We can call this Co

Creation of solutions where the consumers (the poor) have a significant say in developing

the solution. (Fillip and Foote, 2007, foreword II)

In conclusion, scalability is essential if any business model envisions a wide impact, but we should

however not forget there are two dimensions possible: quantitative scale-up and

qualitative/contextual scale-up. It makes no sense to scale the same business model’s features

everywhere, thinking it will replicate the same outcomes: quantitative scale-up. It will definitely not

take into account that different contexts need different answers (see section on value propositions).

This observation indeed makes total sense compared to the lessons learnt through the cases and the

literature review previously explored. There is definitely not a best practice or a business model to

be followed and applied everywhere in the same way. The local context remains particularly

important, especially in India where the socio-cultural and socio-economic features differ very

much dependently on the caste, the gender, the socio-economic status, the location (urban/rural and

State) and policy.

10.4 Sustainability

The sustainability question is a very tricky question to answer. What really means sustainability? It

means looking for the ways of delivering right and adapted ICT services cheaply and effectively at

the village level and on the long run. More especially, it says that “development efforts should be

economically or commercially self-sustaining eventually, and that preferably they should be made

sustainable through some kind of market mechanism [...] [so that] IT should be promoted with as

limited an intervention as possible to overcome barriers that were keeping a market from

developing on its own.” (Kendall and Singh, 2006, p. 2)

However, most studies have shown that low income environments encounter a critical challenge to

offer the adequate environment for commercial services to take place (Sey and Fellows, 2009).

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Professor Jai Asundi (personal communication, December 14, 2014) answered me there were like

four principles, which I also found out through my literature review, which needed to be achieved in

order to make an ICT-enabled project sustainable:

1. Involve the community in their establishment;

2. Build capacity within the community to maintain the infrastructure;

3. Have champions within (and outside) the community to make it successful;

4. Treat each region or area separately - success factors in different regions will be different.

Here below, you can find how Harsha Liyanage (2009), ICT4D sector expert, classified the success

factors, which could help make an ICT-enabled initiative successful.

10.4.1 Financial sustainability

If it is very important to consider first the financial sustainability from the very outset of the kiosk's

implementation in order to test viability of services and evaluate the business model’s sustainability.

Studies have concluded the financial sustainability is associated with different factors: good

management, good locations, strong local demand, new service development, locally relevant

services, external linkages and networking (Benjamin, 2001; Etta and Parvyn-Wamahiu, 2003;

Latchem and Walker, 2001; Colle and Roman, 2002, cited by Sey and Fellows, 2009).

Figure 67 - Factors contributing to

telecentre sustainability (Liyanage, 2009, p. 53)

Figure 68 - Mapping the reasons for non-sustainability (Liyanage, 2009, p. 26)

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As most of the times villagers have low affordability, the shared-access facility or ICT-enabled

kiosk is the best way to share the costs resulting from the access and use of ICT with their

community:

The globally accepted concept for sustainability of telecentres appears to be that the users

should share the cost of telecom infrastructure and local facilities to provide a service to the

community at an affordable cost and become commercially viable. (Ariyabandu, 2009, p. 2)

In the three case studies I went through in the previous sections, it is obvious that there is a huge

need of financial sustainability in order to replicate the model among rural India and to preserve the

already-existing kiosks. Nevertheless, if there are not enough users regularly coming in the kiosk

and generating revenues, the kiosk entrepreneur cannot break even and cannot remain financially

sustainable. The principle to preserve the financial sustainability consists therefore to at least cover

the operating costs of the business model and to generate a sufficient yield to the entrepreneur in

charge of running the franchised kiosk.

As raised by Kendall and Singh (2006), learning effects also play a significant impact on the

financial sustainability of the private and for-profit business model of ICT-enabled kiosks. It is the

reason why for instance n-Logue had decided to set up a phased cost approach for kiosk operators,

in order to offer them a dedicated period to afford the operating costs while learning the business

model management. However, it remains particularly difficult to break even for a kiosk

entrepreneur. In that sense, the Research Study 6 had found out some interesting observations which

consisted to say that on average a kiosk operator was not sustainable:

Most critical for those interested in kiosk sustainability, average monthly income at kiosks

remains low, with both mean and median at approximately Rs. 2000 per month, and this is

below the target break-even income desired by either company (between Rs. 3000 and 5000,

depending on terms of the loan, cost of connectivity, and the initial capital expenditure on

hardware). This data is consistent with that observed in other studies (Dhawan, 2004;

Srinivasan, 2004). (Toyama, Kiri, Menon, Pal, Sethi and Srinivasan, 2005, pp. 5-6)

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10.4.2 Value propositions

The ICT-enabled initiatives from the private and for-profit model that had succeeded since the

2000’s were those where local people were adequately addressed since they had participated to the

design of the initiative (co-creation). The initiative could understand the needs and answer them at

best and villagers could in turn avail the value propositions desired. It is the “bottom-up” strategy.

ITC e-Choupal evolved in that sense from a “top-down” approach with e-Choupal 1.0 to a “bottom-

up” approach with e-Choupal 3.0 and Drishtee changed its business model to have a greater impact

on the rural communities as Satyan Mishra, its historic founder, told me during the interview

(personal communication, December 28, 2014).

The generation of profit stems from the delivery of ICT services and development assistance that

stand as value propositions: agriculture, health, education, banking and government services. The

principle is to provide useful and helpful services in return for fees, while considering the socio-

economic capability of the bottom of the pyramid. If there is absence of utility for the community

to use the services provided, the usage will subsequently be low and the profitability of the kiosk

will not guarantee its sustainability. People are ready to pay in order to get valuable information and

ready to exploit the opportunity to get knowledge from services if the see any opportunity.

It is still more critical to assure the viability of the business model of any ICT initiative targeting

rural areas like India. A large and disadvantaged community (BOP) should ideally be addressed and

proposed multiple services and products delivery that create value and are affordable. The

assessment of needs and local issues should therefore be pursued through surveys and discussions

with the population in rural areas, in order to be able:

1. to understand which ICT initiative will benefit to which needs;

2. to sustain the initiative with efficient and adequate value propositions over time.

Here, I stress it is very important to understand ICT benefits can only be effective whether they

provide value and offer a sustainable value for both the user and the provider. Gunasekera and

Miranda (cited by Grimshaw and Kala, 2011, p. 141) mention research studies have defined

elements of sustainable business models:

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The marketability of information services can be improved and diversified (e.g. market

information, advising information, weather information, etc.);

The offer-driven approach can be changed and address the villagers collectively instead of

individually (e.g. membership fee, indirect revenue generation, etc.);

The partnership with an existing local business or social organization helps in developing a

viable business model to serve villagers with new services.

The value proposition should therefore be customer-oriented and locally driven depending on the

socio-cultural and socio-economic context of the community targeted; so that the services provided

by the kiosks have to be aligned to the rural needs and demand. Contextual issues play here a

significant impact on the successfulness of the private and for-profit model from implementation to

replication. Business opportunity is related to local demand. It is therefore necessary to take enough

time before franchising the business model. This “bottom up” and “demand-driven” approach is in

preference the best way to foster rural development, as it answers at best the right and specific

needs according to the rural village in which the kiosk is located and reflects the community’s

willingness to pay the services provided by the kiosk. It means identifying the existing opportunities

within the communities and translating them into co-created solutions which implied them to

participate in the design process:

Since communities are the closest to grassroots’ problems, they are the best judge to

evaluate technology alternatives and provide innovative solutions for the problems of their

respective areas. (Malhotra, Chariar, Das and Ilavarasan, p. 219)

The ability to use ICT is therefore better if a “bottom-up” approach instead of a “top-down”

approach is used. It is exactly what ITC learnt with e-Choupal as argued Prahalad and Krishnan

(2011, p. 14): “The services and solutions offered had to be what the village needed rather than

what ITC believed would be good for that particular village.” Satyan Mishra (personal

communication, December 28, 2014) clearly agreed with that observation by telling me that he

thought “ITC e-Choupal had a better business model at that time [than Drishtee] because it was not

just about providing information, it was also about sourcing products.”

During the interview, Professor Unwin (personal communication, January 5, 2015) explained me

how much it was important and critical for success to involve the local people in the design process

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of the ICT-enabled initiative since those communities are the best to identify what they need the

most and would then have willingness to pay for:

You have to involve the intended recipients in the design programme. These programmes

should not be designed like in developed countries, without knowing the local problem

encountered and how solutions could answer them. You have to live in the village and

understand the context. It would be kind of product learning. […] It’s a mantra approach.

[…] Poor people know more than [ICT-enabled initiators] do about what being poor is like

and what they need. So I think that it’s absolutely essential [to understand]. […] Poor

people will pay to something that they think is a value. There you need incentives for the

private sector to develop them. It could be subsidized.

In that sense, as Dossani, Misra and Jhaveri (2004, p. 4) underlined, “community-based

organizations understand user needs the best and are also the best-organized to provide it.”

Therefore, they should be included in the process of co-creation of the private and for-profit

operator.

Finally, some evidence confirmed the reason why a service for development purposes is used by

villagers. In that sense, adequately and consistently addressed value propositions encountered a

higher chance to succeed (Sey and Fellows, 2009, p. 9):

While Menon et al (2006) found that e-government, veterinary and healthcare services

constituted less than 10% of the use of rural PC kiosks in India, they also concluded that use

of such services is high at locations where they are offered consistently.

10.4.3 Partnerships and regulation

Government services can also be supported by the ICT-enabled kiosks. As a result, the kiosks can

serve as points of contact because they act as intermediaries in the relationship between the

government and the citizen. Thus, e-government services can complement the bunch of services

provided by the kiosk and play the key role of “pump-primer” for regularly attracting people to the

kiosk.

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The private and commercial model tends to have limited social impacts as seen previously because

of priority focus given to commercial services. It is very tough to both target the social

sustainability and the financial sustainability. Therefore, private sector models can benefit from

public involvement in their ICT projects, in order to build their capacity (e.g. cost sharing,

development of content providers, local content, etc.) and impact (in terms of customer service and

suited marketing) related to the needs of the villagers. A good example is here the Akshaya centers

in Kerala: “[…] Each took on approximately 1,000 learners and collected the equivalent of US$3.26

per learner for providing a basic computer course developed by the state’s IT mission” (World

Bank, 2009, p. 24). It resulted from the situation that “[…] the local government covered part of the

cost (US$2.79), as did the learners (US$0.47) [and] in about a year, the private entrepreneurs had

recovered their initial investment” (World Bank, 2009, p. 24).

Private public partnerships (PPP) have then to be considered, in order to reinforce the sustainability

of the business models. As the private sector is more focused on the innovation and the operations

by nature in order to assure the financial sustainability of the kiosk, the public sector should bear an

important part of the responsibility in the social development role of the kiosk for the goodness of

the rural community. Empirical evidence has also proved it is not a good idea to exclusively

dedicate the funding of telecenters to the public sector as they offer “not a good sustainability

formula, financially or politically” (Colle and Roman, 2002, cited by Harris, Kumar and Balaji,

2003, p. 9).

According to Professor Unwin, the umbrella agency in multi-stakeholder partnerships should

however be the public sector “[…] because the public sector the only sector that theoretically serves

the interests of all people”. It is currently for instance kind of embodied into CSC’s in rural India

now. Synergies and partnerships can in that sense be developed in order to scale-up ICT in rural

Figure 69 - Dimensions of telecentre sustainability: input-output definitions (Masiero, 2011)

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India: Common Service Centers (CSCs) which are nowadays more than one hundred thousand

centers throughout India.

However, it is critical to keep in mind the social impact of the ICT-based e-governance project and

not prioritarily focus on financial revenues. The private participation has then to be evaluated and

defined before the e-services to be launched. In a more and more globalized world where

multinational companies are on the playground of the development, the private sector initiates ICT

projects as long as business opportunities exist. It was the case of ITC when the launched e-

Choupal. Moreover, the commitment of the public sector can vary related to the state where the ICT

initiative stands out. Andhra Pradesh is, for instance, one of the leading Indian states for private-

public partnerships e-governance based initiatives. It supports its rural communities through e-

governance with the ICT-enabled initiative Mee Seva.

10.4.4 Technical capacity

Technical capacity or infrastructure is a critical and a first step condition to the implementation of

any ICT initiatives in rural areas. Facilities such as energy power systems, connectivity systems

(like the connectivity model of n-Logue) and computer related materials constitute an important

input for enabling availability in remote and rural areas and consequently access to information.

However, rural India still depends on undependable connectivity and electric power infrastructure

and on limited hours of use.

ICT-enabled initiatives can drive development of infrastructures for connectivity and electricity to

villages and also play through e-commerce procurement channels a serious alternative to rural-to-

urban journeys of villagers when they want to get informed or make transactions (Oestmann &

Dymond, 2001, cited by Mukerji, 2013, p. 5). Here, we can for instance take the example of ITC e-

Choupal which enables farmers to avoid traveling in order to sell their crops, in plus of providing

them with an infrastructure equipped with connectivity and electricity: the e-Choupal centers.

Providing broadband in rural areas is however a huge challenge which could overcome many others

as Professor Unwin underlined: “Once you have got connectivity, actually the device you have

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doesn’t matter.” (Tim Unwin, personal communication, January 5, 2015) Moreover, frugal

innovation is also necessary to optimize for instance the energy demands of ICTs and in turn

increase the affordability of the energy cost in rural areas. They have to be complement with

regulations, in order to ensure appropriate tariff structures in rural India and then provide universal

access. However, it is tough to enable affordable solutions in rural and remote areas “[…] where

usage rates are low and therefore service provision unprofitable.” (Unwin, 2009, p. 366)

For instance, the corDECT wireless technology developed locally by the ITT, Chennai, and not

imported as it used to be the case by the past, pushed down the cost of the connectivity model of n-

Logue. As we previously explained, this technology allowed n-Logue to provide local ICT

computing adapted to the context of India by answering the problems of remoteness, the lack of

infrastructure and the cost of technology in rural areas.

10.4.5 Kiosk entrepreneur capacity

The kiosk entrepreneur capacity is another critical factor for the sustainability of the private and for-

profit model based on pc kiosks. It is essential to set up employment and training practices in order

to sustain staff capability for running the pc kiosk in the right way on the long run. Efforts of the

kiosk entrepreneur can contribute to foster social inclusion (Toyama and al, 2004, p. 6).

Entrepreneurial skills for sales and marketing are furthermore important for the kiosk entrepreneur

in order to efficiently be able to manage and market the bunch of services provided to the villagers.

Research Study 6 underlined the fact kiosk customers enlightened more than on average bad kiosk

operator’s performance:

70% of kiosk customers report that the kiosk operator handles all transactions on the

computer, and that they remain unable to use a computer. (Toyama and al., 2005, p. 5)

Furthermore, based on their empirical study, Kendall and Singh (2006) showed other socio-cultural

factors also played a significant role in the success of a village kiosk. Particularly, it has been

enlightened the caste designation of the kiosk operator did significantly impact on profits in

function of the local social norms and practices in effect in the region. On the opposite, selection

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process and training of the village-level entrepreneurs could counter some challenges such as

gender bias as the authors said. Therefore it remains very important to consider an adequate

business model which overcomes these diverse issues.

10.4.6 Awareness, capacity and affordability of the BOP

Capacity of the villager is finally very important as well. However, rural communities, as we

pointed out in this work are not always able to be aware of the advantages they could retrieve from

accessing ICT and they are also often not able to use them. It has been proved that ICT initiatives

where training had been incorporated, the rate and speed of adoption of the ICT use were higher

(Gunasekera and Miranda, citedby Grimshaw and Kala, 2011).

Awareness is the first step to overcome. The kiosk entrepreneur capacity can permit to raise

awareness of the villagers about the ICT-enabled kiosk and the bunch of value-added services

provided. Research Study 6 showed that social networks can be a powerful driver:

Kiosk marketing appears most effective through word of mouth, with over 60% of

respondents having chosen to make their first visit to a kiosk based on hearing from friends

and family. As most kiosk operators make some effort to market services to their

communities through village assemblies or through pamphlets, so this reflects theories of

diffusion of innovation that emphasize the importance of personal networks in technology

adoption. […] (Colle and Roman, 2001, cited by Toyama, Kiri, Menon, Pal, Sethi and

Srinivasan, 2005, p. 5)

The ability to understand and use ICT is nevertheless better if the people understand and appreciate

the value from using the technology for needs and requirements which concern them in priority.

This is what ITC learnt with e-Choupal as argued Prahalad and Krishnan (2011, p. 14):

One of the lessons ITC had learned from e-Choupal 1.0 was that adoption was quicker when

the value creation opportunity was clearer to the farmers. This was based on the premise

that people’s intuitive ability to use technology is very different if they understand and

appreciate the value from the use of new technology. Therefore, ITC first focused on

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demonstrating the value of the mobile business model, and then rolled out the mobile

technology platform. […]

Affordability of the villagers certainly remains the most important criterion to impact the

sustainability of an ICT-enabled kiosk. The Microsoft’s review of research on pc kiosks (2007)

showed the economic viability is difficult since the kiosk services (pay-per-transaction or pay-per-

use) are often overcharged compared to the willingness-to-pay for them.

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11. Conclusion

We can say that the private and for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks can offer digital solutions to

rural and remote areas of India by providing access to their marginalized communities and feeding

them with information and communication technologies. It permits to decrease the isolation of these

communities to the worldwide web and opens the relationships between them and the outside world

notably through commercial services (B2C2B) and e-government services (G2C2G). ICT-enabled

kiosks can in that sense help them by kind of e-inclusion to substitute the lack of infrastructures and

institutions in remote and rural areas, and they may in some ways enable social inclusion, regardless

of caste, gender or socio-economic situation. Even though research studies show a large part of

telecenter initiatives have generally got limited empowering impacts on the rural communities, we

pointed out that the value propositions of the business model, the multi-stakeholder partnerships of

the network agency and especially the human capacity of the kiosk entrepreneur integrating the

whole community could overcome certain barriers, both for the sustainability and the rural

empowerment of the initiative.

The question was hence to know whether the telecenter initiatives had to follow some guidelines. It

goes back to the question of success criteria of an ICT-enabled initiative I asked Tim Unwin about

during my interview with him. He answered me the criteria any designer of ICT-enabled initiative

should pay attention were essentially political, social, cultural and economic criteria; and that

connectivity and electricity should be considered in priority, since ICT-enabled initiatives don’t

exist reliably or fail before they started “if you don’t have the basic infrastructure at the first place

[…].” (Tim Unwin, personal communication, January 5, 2015)

Based on my literature review, the interview conducted and the three cases studied, I have

consequently been able to answer the question and identify the success criteria of the private and

for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks:

1. Field analysis: Identify and understand the socio-economic and socio-cultural context.

2. Infrastructure: Assure connectivity and electricity are available.

3. ICT policy: Leverage the public sector to be a facilitator or to implement ICT-D policies

and partnerships (e-governance)

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4. Innovation: Provide robust ICT technology solutions (connectivity, hardware and software)

and ICT-enabled services to remote and rural areas at contextual conditions (e.g. remote

distance for connectivity signal, low usage, illiteracy, etc.) and at cost-effective and

affordable price through frugal innovation cost-effective, otherwise it is not possible to build

a user base at all.

5. Location: Shared-access facility location matters since kiosk usage can be positively

impacted whether the location is near a gathering place within the village for instance.

6. Local involvement and participation of the local community: Villager should be involved

in designing the initiative (co-creation) according a “bottom-up approach”.

7. Adequate value propositions (supply driven inputs and demand-side constraints): simple,

complete, appropriate, customized and affordable value propositions according to the

opportunities identified.

8. Scalability in terms of design and implementation: Any business model, whether it is not

scalable, will never impact enough people and get any wide impact in rural India which

counts more than half a million villages. An orchestrating agency should therefore network

the ICT-enabled kiosks or franchisees. It is in that case essential to have a common model

within the network for sharing information and knowledge.

9. Stakeholder Partnership: The business model should consider partnerships with the civil

society, the public sector and others such as business partners, NGOs, etc. for ensuring the

ecosystem sustainability, otherwise it is difficult to scale and even sustain if no tier support

is provided for technology and services.

10. Evaluation: Maintaining monitoring and evaluation to improve the impact.

The final lesson I can learn from this work is that it is not the supply driven inputs from the private

and for-profit model that make a business model financially sustainable or not. A fulfillment of

several factors as previously explained in the discussion section and above-mentioned: capability of

the kiosk entrepreneur, added-value and affordability of services, policy environment, efficiency of

the management system, and the innovation and the cost of the connectivity system and

infrastructure.

Moreover, it is not that easy to prevent the failure of a business model due to misjudged socio-

economic context or due to bad strategic decisions and to substitute the existing processes. It is in

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plus very hard for a kiosk to have a village-wide impact and benefit everybody. Only services that

concern most of the villagers can attract them in the ICT-enabled kiosk as long as it is affordable

and they have the capacity to understand the service to interact with and use it (local language). The

case of n-Logue failed for this latter reason: It was not able to provide enough adequate and

valuable services, in order to enable its financial sustainability.

However, it is not because it is very hard for a private and for-profit model to survive in

implementing ICT-enabled kiosks in rural India that it is impossible for any ICT-enabled kiosk to

be successful and sustainable. Therefore, the answer to my thesis question I have found out through

my research and the interviews is definitely “yes”, they can be successful, but under certain

conditions.

As we have explained in the beginning of the work, there is a significant urban-rural divide in India

which depicts the fact that socio-economic conditions are on average far less good in rural areas

than in urban areas. The more representative outcome concerns the literacy rate which stands

relatively low in rural areas compared to urban areas. Similarly, there is a digital divide between

rural and urban areas; in the sense teledensity is higher in towns than in countryside. The critical

discourse (ICT-D) I further explored in the work taught me ICT should not be considered as “end”,

but as “means” or “enabler” for bridging digital divide between urban and rural areas and

empowering the rural communities, as Satyan Mishra, founder of Drishtee, reminds me several

times during the interview. Millennium Development Goals, which had been envisioned in the

beginning of the 2000’s, cannot in any way be directly achieved by ICT. Therefore, even though the

transformational discourse (ICT4D) is finally questioned, the critical discourse of ICT and

Development which considers the whole ecosystem in which the ICT is implemented is definitely

more valuable from my point of view as it considers not the technology first, but rather the

ecosystem in which and how the technology would have to be implemented.

Finally, ICT-enabled kiosks based on private-public partnership (given that the government is the

network agency is better according to Tim Unwin) and mobile phones as independent ICT tools can

be kind of alternatives for addressing and targeting rural India as well. Mobile phones can certainly

even be better and impact faster in some ways for bridging digital divide and helping to drive

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development of local communities. Although, penetration of mobile phones in India is increasing

and it is a phenomenon which is wide enough to impact rural and remote areas on the long run.

In conclusion, there are somehow two different views regarding the future of ICT-enabled kiosks,

especially regarding the undeniable emergence nowadays of mobile telephony; Tim Unwin

(Personal communication, January 5, 2015) gave me some insights on that:

1. They will continue in a persistent movement. They are doing a lot of work and can still

enhance their multipurpose nature by providing in their orchestrated network value-added

services and products that are not yet well delivered or just inexistent. It is what ITC e-

Choupal and Drishtee are doing currently.

2. They are considered in a transitional movement. As they will never deliver to the whole

community, they will consequently become pointless when everybody will be rich enough

to afford an individual device (mobile phones).

From my point of view, ICT-enabled kiosks could continue to exist in the future and I am going to

use the analogy Tim Unwin shared with me during our skype interview: libraries. As libraries used

to adapt themselves last century to the evolution of the technology (e-books) with new value

propositions for the customers (digital book loan services), the private and for-profit model of ICT-

enabled kiosks should reinvent itself. Indeed, it is exactly what ITC e-Choupal and Drishtee did and

are still doing, in the opposite of n-Logue, which just abandoned and did not try differently to

address and target rural communities. They diversified the bunch of value propositions delivered

through new services and products.

158

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http://www.inclusive-business.org/WBCSD_Technology_Enablers.pdf

http://www.inclusive-business.org/WBCSD_Technology_Enablers.pdf

170

12.2 Websites

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Drishtee model village plan, powerpoint document. (2012). Drishtee.com. Retrieved October 5,

2014, from http://www.drishtee.com/wp/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Drishtees-Model-

Village-Plan-2012.pdf

Drishtee Substainable Communities. (n.d.). Drishtee.com. Retrieved October 5, 2014, from

http://www.drishtee.com

Drishtee Substainable Communities: Financial inclusion. (n.d.). Drishtee.com. Retrieved October 5,

2014, from http://www.drishtee.com/strategic-solutions/financial-inclusion/

Drishtee Substainable Communities: Health. (n.d.). Drishtee.com. Retrieved October 5, 2014, from


Food and agriculture organization of the united nations. (n.d.). Fao.org. Retrieved November, 5,

2014, from http://www.fao.org/in-action/en/

Gopi, A. (2012, March 13). E-Choupal, a story of happy unintended consequences. Openideo.com.

Retrieved November 3, 2014, from https://openideo.com/challenge/web-start-

up/inspiration/e-choupal-a-story-of-happy-unintended-consequences

Government of India: Ministry of home affairs. (2011). Censusindia.gov.in. Retrieved September

28, 2014, from http://www.censusindia.gov.in/

Government of India: Open Government Data. (2011). data.gov.in. Retrieved December 5, 2014,

from http://www.data.gov.in/catalog/state-wise-infant-mortality-rate

ICT. (2010, January 4). Techterms.com. Retrieved November 5, 2014, from

http://techterms.com/definition/ict

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http://www.data.gov.in/catalog/state-wise-infant-mortality-rate

171

ICTlogy. (2008, January 19). Fostering the Information Society for Development in the Web 2.0

framework: from push to pull strategies — the case of Spain. ictlogy.net. Retrieved

November 5, 2014, from http://ictlogy.net/20080119-fostering-the-information-society-for-

development-in-the-web-20-framework-from-push-to-pull-strategies-the-case-of-spain/

ICT Sector Statistics in India - Current Status. (n.d.). Eldis.org. Retrieved November 9, 2014, from

http://www.eldis.org/go/home&id=64473&type=Document#.VKkN6FpjuQs

Information and communication technology. (2008, September 19). Foldoc.org. Retrieved October

27, 2014, from http://foldoc.org/Information+and+Communication+Technology

International Telecommunication Union. (2013). Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000-

2012. Itu.int. Retrieved October 27, 2014, from http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-

D/Statistics/Documents/statistics/2013/Individuals_Internet_2000-2012.xls

ITC e-Choupal. (n.d.). Echoupal.com. Retrieved November 3, 2014, from

https://www.echoupal.com

Mishra, K. C. (2008, April). National Insurance Academy at the Conference on ICT for Financial

Inclusion at CAB. Cab.org.in. Retrieved December 2, 2014, from

http://www.cab.org.in/ICTPortal/Lists/Video%20Library/DispForm.aspx?ID=11

Labelle, R. (2003, October). E-Primer on ICT policy formulation and e-Strategy development.

Paper presented at Asian Forum on ICT Policies and e-Strategies, 2001, Kuala Lumpur.

Apdip.net. Retrieved August 20, 2014, from www.apdip.net/asian-forum. (site web invalide)

Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development. (n.d.). Itu.int. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from

http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/intlcoop/partnership/pub.aspx

Rabin, B. (2012, April, 25). State wise internet users in India Census 2011. Updateox.com.

Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-internet-users-in-

india-census-2011/

Rabin, B. (2012, April, 25). State wise mobile phone users in India Census 2011. Updateox.com.

Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-mobile-phone-

users-in-india-census-2011/

Reed, M. (2014, April 3). The rural/urban divide dies out. Indiaintransition.com. Retrieved June 2,

2014, from http://indiaintransition.com/2014/04/03/the-ruralurban-divide-dies-out/

Rouse, M. (2005, September). ICT (information and communications technology – or

technologies). Searchcio.techtarget.com. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from

http://ictlogy.net/20080119-fostering-the-information-society-for-development-in-the-web-20-framework-from-push-to-pull-strategies-the-case-of-spain/

http://ictlogy.net/20080119-fostering-the-information-society-for-development-in-the-web-20-framework-from-push-to-pull-strategies-the-case-of-spain/

http://foldoc.org/Information+and+Communication+Technology

172

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/ICT-information-and-communications-

technology-or-technologies

The Times of India. (2014, July 24). India ranks 135 in human development index: UNDP.

Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved November 16, 2014, from

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-ranks-135-in-human-development-index-

UNDP/articleshow/38959685.cms

Techinasia (2012). Retrieved from https://www.techinasia.com/dominant-languages-on-internet-

english-chinese/

United Nations Development Programme. (2014). Human development index (HDI). Hdr.undp.org.

Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-.

index-hdi

Updateox (2012). State wise internet users in India Census 2011. Updateox.com

Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-internet-users-in-

india-census-2011/

Updateox (2012). State wise mobile phone users in India Census 2011. Updateox.com

Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-mobile-phone-

users-in-india-census-2011/

World Bank. (n.d.). Death rate, crude (per 1,000 people). Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved October 5,

2014, from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CDRT.IN

World Bank. (n.d.). Literacy rate, adult female (% of females ages 15 and above).

Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved October 5, 2014, from

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.FE.ZS?page=1

World Bank. (n.d.). Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above). Data.worldbank.org.

Retrieved October 5, 2014, from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS

World Bank. (n.d.). Urban vs. Rural population (% of total). Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved

October 5, 2014, from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS

World Bank. (n.d.). GDP (current US$). Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved October 5, 2014, from

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD

World Bank. (n.d.). GDP, PPP (current international $). Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved October 5,

2014, from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD

World Bank. (n.d.). GDP per capita (current US$). Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved October 5, 2014,

from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD

http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-

http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-internet-users-in-india-census-2011/

http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-internet-users-in-india-census-2011/

http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-mobile-phone-users-in-india-census-2011/

http://updateox.com/india/state-wise-mobile-phone-users-in-india-census-2011/

173

13. Appendix

13.1 IDI (2007 and 2002)

Source: ITU, 2009

174

13.2 IDI access sub-index (2007 and 2002)

Source: ITU, 2009

175

13.3 IDI skills sub-index (2007 and 2002)

Source: ITU, 2009

176

13.4 ICT Price Basket 2008

Source: ITU, 2009

177

States Population Area Rate of Literacy BR, DR and IMR ICT appliances

no Names Total Ratio total Rural percentage Urban percentage Total Males (%) Females (%) Rural Males Urban Males Rural Females Urban Females Birth rate Rural Birth rate Urban Death rate Rural Death rate Urban IMR % Total phone users % Total computer % Computer with internet % landline phones % mobile phones

1 Andhra Pradesh 49386799.0 4.2 70.4 29.6 67.7 75.6 59.7 70.2 86.0 52.1 75.0 18.3 16.7 8.6 5.4 46 63.1 8.4 5.8 4.1 54.9

2 Arunachal Pradesh 1382611.0 0.1 79.2 20.8 67.0 73.7 59.6 68.8 89.5 53.8 79.0 28.8 22 7 5.6 48 48.3 8.2 6.2 2.9 39.8

3 Assam 31169272.0 2.6 87.1 12.9 73.2 78.8 67.3 76.5 91.8 64.1 85.7 24.4 15.8 8.6 5.8 58 47.9 9.3 7.7 2.2 43.4

4 Bihar 103804637.0 8.7 89.5 10.5 63.8 73.4 53.3 71.9 84.4 50.8 72.4 22.1 14.6 6.9 2.3 31 55.4 7.1 6.2 2.2 51.6

5 Chhattisgarh 25540196.0 2.1 79.9 20.1 71.0 81.5 60.6 78.2 91.6 55.4 77.7 26.8 18.6 8.4 6.2 51 30.7 4.6 3.4 1.5 27.2

6 Goa 1457723.0 0.1 37.8 62.2 87.4 92.8 81.8 91.7 93.5 76.8 85.0 12.6 13.7 8.1 5.7 10 89.2 31.1 18.4 12.1 53.8

7 Gujarat 60383628.0 5.1 62.6 37.4 79.3 87.2 70.7 83.1 92.4 62.4 82.1 23.3 19.4 7.5 5.5 44 69 8.8 5.7 3.3 58.6

8 Haryana 25353081.0 2.1 71.1 28.9 76.6 85.4 66.8 83.2 89.4 61.0 77.5 23.3 19.8 7 5.6 48 79.4 13.2 7.9 4.5 66.9

9 Himachal Pradesh 6856509.0 0.6 90.2 9.8 83.8 90.8 76.6 90.5 93.7 75.3 88.7 17.5 11.5 7.2 4.2 40 82.3 8.4 5.6 7.4 61.5

10 Jammu and Kashmir 12548926.0 1.1 75.2 24.8 86.6 87.3 85.2 75.5 84.9 53.4 70.2 19.5 13.5 5.9 4.7 43 69.5 8.4 5.5 3.6 59.3

11 Jharkhand 32966238.0 2.8 77.8 22.2 67.6 78.5 56.2 74.6 89.8 49.8 76.2 26.7 19.3 7.4 5.4 42 48 6.9 5.4 2 44.1

12 Karnataka 61130704.0 5.1 66.0 34.0 75.6 82.7 68.1 77.9 90.5 59.6 81.7 20.2 17.5 8.1 5.4 38 71.6 12.8 8 7 56.5

13 Kerala 33387677.0 2.8 74.0 26.0 93.9 96.0 92.0 95.3 96.8 90.7 93.3 14.8 14.8 7.1 6.7 13 89.7 15.8 9.5 11.6 46.8

14 Madhya Pradesh 72587565.0 6.1 73.5 26.5 70.6 80.5 60.0 76.6 90.2 53.2 77.4 29.2 20.5 9 6 62 46 5.9 4.5 2.4 40.6

15 Maharashtra 112372972.0 9.4 57.6 42.4 83.2 89.8 75.5 86.4 93.8 67.4 85.4 34.6 26.4 25.5 22.3 78 69.1 13.3 7.5 6.3 53.7

16 Manipur 2721756.0 0.2 74.9 25.1 79.9 86.5 73.2 84.1 92.1 70.0 80.2 14.8 15.3 4.3 4 14 57.5 9 6.9 3 52.3

17 Meghalaya 2964007.0 0.2 80.4 19.6 75.5 77.2 73.8 72.8 93.2 69.5 89.5 26.6 14.8 8.4 5.6 55 43 7.6 6.1 1.5 39.1

18 Mizoram 1091014.0 0.1 50.4 49.6 91.6 93.7 89.4 88.4 98.7 80.0 97.5 21.1 13 5.4 3.7 37 72.8 15.2 12.7 1.7 63.9

19 Nagaland 1980602.0 0.2 82.8 17.2 80.1 83.3 76.7 79.5 92.1 72.0 88.1 17 16 3.7 3.3 23 53.1 8.9 7.2 1.3 48.6

20 Odisha 41947358.0 3.5 85.0 15.0 72.9 82.4 64.4 80.4 91.8 61.1 80.7 21.4 15.2 9 6.6 61 39.8 5.1 3.7 1.8 35.6

21 Punjab 27704236.0 2.3 66.1 33.9 76.6 81.5 71.3 77.9 87.3 66.5 79.6 17.2 15.6 7.7 5.8 34 82.2 12.8 7.4 6.7 62.3

22 Rajasthan 68621012.0 5.8 76.6 23.4 67.1 80.5 52.7 77.5 89.2 46.3 71.5 27.9 22.9 6.9 6 55 70.6 6.9 5.1 2.5 62.5

23 Sikkim 607688.0 0.1 88.9 11.1 82.2 87.3 76.4 85.4 92.9 73.4 85.2 18.1 16.1 5.9 3.8 30 73 11.5 8.2 1.8 67.7

24 Tamil Nadu 72138958.0 6.1 56.0 44.0 80.3 86.8 73.9 82.1 91.8 65.5 82.7 16 15.8 8.2 6.9 24 74.9 10.6 6.4 5.7 62.1

25 Telangala 35193978.0 3.0 70.4 29.6 67.7 75.6 59.7 70.2 86.0 52.1 75.0 18.3 16.7 8.6 5.4 46 63.1 8.4 5.8 4.1 54.9

26 Tripura 3671032.0 0.3 82.9 17.1 87.8 92.2 83.2 90.9 95.8 80.1 91.4 15.6 11.5 4.8 5.7 27 48.1 7.2 6.3 2.1 43.7

27 Uttar Pradesh 199581477.0 16.8 79.2 20.8 69.7 79.2 59.3 78.5 81.8 55.6 71.7 29.2 24.2 8.5 6.3 61 66.9 8.1 6.2 3.3 61.2

28 Uttarakhand 10116752.0 0.9 74.3 25.7 79.6 88.3 70.7 87.6 89.8 66.8 80.0 20.2 16.2 6.7 5.1 38 74.6 11 7.8 3.2 64.8

29 West Bengal 91347736.0 7.7 72.0 28.0 77.1 82.7 71.2 79.5 89.2 66.1 81.7 18.6 11.9 6 6.3 31 49.2 8.3 6.1 2.3 42.9

Total India 1190016144.0 100.0 73.5 26.5 73.0 80.9 64.6 77.2 88.8 57.9 79.1 9.4 6.3 4 53.2

13.5 Statistics of states of India: Population, Area, Rate of literacy (2011)

Source : Government of India, 2011; Updateox.com, 2012

178

States Area Rate of Literacy IMR

no Names Rural percentage Urban percentage Total %

1 Andhra Pradesh 70.4 29.6 67.7 43

2 Arunachal Pradesh 79.2 20.8 67.0 32

3 Assam 87.1 12.9 73.2 55

4 Bihar 89.5 10.5 63.8 44

5 Chhattisgarh 79.9 20.1 71.0 39

6 Goa 37.8 62.2 87.4 11

7 Gujarat 62.6 37.4 79.3 41

8 Haryana 71.1 28.9 76.6 44

9 Himachal Pradesh 90.2 9.8 83.8 30

10 Jammu and Kashmir 75.2 24.8 86.6 41

11 Jharkhand 77.8 22.2 67.6 36

12 Karnataka 66.0 34.0 75.6 35

13 Kerala 74.0 26.0 93.9 12

14 Madhya Pradesh 73.5 26.5 70.6 59

15 Maharashtra 57.6 42.4 83.2 78

16 Manipur 74.9 25.1 79.9 11

17 Meghalaya 80.4 19.6 75.5 52

18 Mizoram 50.4 49.6 91.6 25

19 Nagaland 82.8 17.2 80.1 21

20 Odisha 85.0 15.0 72.9 57

21 Punjab 66.1 33.9 76.6 30

22 Rajasthan 76.6 23.4 67.1 52

23 Sikkim 88.9 11.1 82.2 26

24 Tamil Nadu 56.0 44.0 80.3 22

25 Telangala 70.4 29.6 67.7 46

26 Tripura 82.9 17.1 87.8 29

27 Uttar Pradesh 79.2 20.8 69.7 57

28 Uttarakhand 74.3 25.7 79.6 36

29 West Bengal 72.0 28.0 77.1 32

Total India 73.5 26.5 73.0 44

13.6 Statistics of states of India: Area, Rate of literacy and IMR (2011)


179

States Area Rate of Literacy ICT appliances

no Names Rural percentage Urban percentage Total % Total phone users % Total computer % Computer with internet % landline phones % mobile phones

1 Andhra Pradesh 70.4 29.6 67.7 63.1 8.4 5.8 4.1 54.9

2 Arunachal Pradesh 79.2 20.8 67.0 48.3 8.2 6.2 2.9 39.8

3 Assam 87.1 12.9 73.2 47.9 9.3 7.7 2.2 43.4

4 Bihar 89.5 10.5 63.8 55.4 7.1 6.2 2.2 51.6

5 Chhattisgarh 79.9 20.1 71.0 30.7 4.6 3.4 1.5 27.2

6 Goa 37.8 62.2 87.4 89.2 31.1 18.4 12.1 53.8

7 Gujarat 62.6 37.4 79.3 69 8.8 5.7 3.3 58.6

8 Haryana 71.1 28.9 76.6 79.4 13.2 7.9 4.5 66.9

9 Himachal Pradesh 90.2 9.8 83.8 82.3 8.4 5.6 7.4 61.5

10 Jammu and Kashmir 75.2 24.8 86.6 69.5 8.4 5.5 3.6 59.3

11 Jharkhand 77.8 22.2 67.6 48 6.9 5.4 2 44.1

12 Karnataka 66.0 34.0 75.6 71.6 12.8 8 7 56.5

13 Kerala 74.0 26.0 93.9 89.7 15.8 9.5 11.6 46.8

14 Madhya Pradesh 73.5 26.5 70.6 46 5.9 4.5 2.4 40.6

15 Maharashtra 57.6 42.4 83.2 69.1 13.3 7.5 6.3 53.7

16 Manipur 74.9 25.1 79.9 57.5 9 6.9 3 52.3

17 Meghalaya 80.4 19.6 75.5 43 7.6 6.1 1.5 39.1

18 Mizoram 50.4 49.6 91.6 72.8 15.2 12.7 1.7 63.9

19 Nagaland 82.8 17.2 80.1 53.1 8.9 7.2 1.3 48.6

20 Odisha 85.0 15.0 72.9 39.8 5.1 3.7 1.8 35.6

21 Punjab 66.1 33.9 76.6 82.2 12.8 7.4 6.7 62.3

22 Rajasthan 76.6 23.4 67.1 70.6 6.9 5.1 2.5 62.5

23 Sikkim 88.9 11.1 82.2 73 11.5 8.2 1.8 67.7

24 Tamil Nadu 56.0 44.0 80.3 74.9 10.6 6.4 5.7 62.1

25 Telangala 70.4 29.6 67.7 63.1 8.4 5.8 4.1 54.9

26 Tripura 82.9 17.1 87.8 48.1 7.2 6.3 2.1 43.7

27 Uttar Pradesh 79.2 20.8 69.7 66.9 8.1 6.2 3.3 61.2

28 Uttarakhand 74.3 25.7 79.6 74.6 11 7.8 3.2 64.8

29 West Bengal 72.0 28.0 77.1 49.2 8.3 6.1 2.3 42.9

Total India 73.5 26.5 73.0 9.4 6.3 4 53.2

13.7 Statistics of states of India: Area, Rate of literacy, ICT appliances (2011)


180

13.8 How ICTs can help achieve MDG?

Source: Table 4.2 World Telecommunication Development Report 2003 (ITU, 2003)

181

13.9 Separations at the “Bottom of the Pyramid”

Source: Evolution of the telecenter movement (Fillip and Foote, 2007)

182

13.10 Examples of ICT applications in rural contexts

Source: Garai and Shadrach, 2006

183

13.11 Research Study 2: regressions and graphs

Source: Kendall and Singh

184

Source: Kendall and Singh, 2006

185

Graphs: Pent-up Demand, Learning by Doing, and Seasonality Issues

Source: Kendall and Singh, 2006

186

13.12 Interviewing guide: Frequently asked questions

The interview is driven in English by email, skype or direct meeting.

The following questions are my areas of research:

Question 1

In my master thesis, I am considering socio-economic factors (rural-to-urban migration, education,

birth rate, mortality, access to health care, PPP, etc.), in order to define urban-rural divide. I also

define the digital divide (explained by awareness, availability, access and affordability) in India.

Do you think ICT initiatives can be the solution to bridge digital divide between urban and

rural areas, at least to alleviate the gap, and why?

Do you consider certain socio-economic factors as very difficult to impact with help of ICT?

Which ones and why? What should be done exactly according to you?

Question 2

According to your expertise and experience, what are the criteria that make an ICT initiative for

rural development is successful? (Success criteria)

Question 3

More precisely, I decided to investigate the private and for-profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks in

rural India.

According to you, could the private and for profit model of ICT-enabled kiosks be a good

way to drive rural development in India? (Achievements and critical issues)

What are the factors that can mitigate the successfulness of these ICT-enabled initiatives in

driving rural India forward? (Success factors)

187

13.13 Biographies of the interviewees

Jai Asundi is Principal Research Scientist at CSTEP (Center for Study of Science, Technology and

Policy). He holds a B.Tech degree from IIT Bombay and M.S. & Ph.D. degrees from Carnegie

Mellon University, Pittsburgh. His interests lie in the areas of information technology for

development, emergency and disaster management, software engineering and project management.

He is currently working on the development of a decision support system for public policy

problems. He is a senior member of the IEEE was a faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas.

(Source: http//:www.cstep.in/)

K. M. Baharul Islam is Professor of Communication at the Indian Institute of Management

Kashipur, India. He holds LLM in Telecom and Information Technology Laws from the University

of Strathclyde (UK), MA (English) from AMU, Aligarh Muslim University (India). He did his PhD

from the Tezpur University (India) and Post-Doctorate from Asian Institute of Technology

(Bangkok) on new technologies in education. Besides he has also done B.Ed. specializing in

Educational Planning and Administration. Dr K M Baharul Islam has been teaching and

researching in the area of Communication, Development, Information Technology policy and legal

issues for more than two decades. A senior expert in Communication for Development (C4D) and

ICT for Development (ICT4D), he has also taken keen interest in educational planning and

management, e-Government strategies, cyberspace management and telecom regulations. Besides

teaching and research, his professional assignments included development of national strategic

plans for and evaluation of ICT programmes in Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries. (Source:

http://www.iimkashipur.ac.in/)

Rajendra Kumar is a senior officer in the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) and is currently

working as a Joint Secretary in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY)

in the Government of India. He is currently leading three major e-governance projects within

DeitY: the National Population Register (NPR) project, and the new Mobile Governance and E-

Pramaan (E-Authentication) projects. Dr. Kumar holds a PhD in international economic

development and regional planning and an MCP from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA,

an MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, and a BTech from the Indian Institute of

http://www.cstep.in/

http://www.iimkashipur.ac.in/

188

Technology in Kanpur. He has published a book and several articles in international journals.

(Source: http://www.cprsouth.org)

Satyan Mishra is the co-founder and Managing Director of Drishtee. He is passionate about the

concept of “creating an ecosystem for the rural and other marginalized communities for facilitating

organic growth and overall development. Satyan, an Ashoka fellow is an MBA in International

Business from Delhi School of Economics and has 12 years of entrepreneurial experience. Satyan

comes from a middle class educated family of Bihar and is dedicated to his work and passion. He

was nominated as the ZDNet Asia’s Technopreneur of the Year later in 2006 and presently is a

Member of the International Forums like Clinton Global Initiative and Young Asia 21 Forum of

Rockefeller Foundation. Drishtee in Satyan’s leadership has won many recognition and awards and

the impact is seen in the 12000 odd entrepreneurs Satyan has helped create and sustain. (Source:

http://www.drishtee.com)

Maitrayee Mukerji is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Studies in Social Management, Central

University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, India. She completed her doctoral dissertation at the Institute

of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), India. (Source: Mukerji, 2013)

Tim Unwin is Secretary General of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation

(http://www.cto.int), Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK

(http://cscuk.dfid.gov.uk), UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, and Emeritus Professor of Geography at

Royal Holloway, University of London. His recent work has concentrated mainly on information

and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), focusing especially on the use of ICTs

to support people with disabilities, and to empower out of school youth. In 2004 he created the

ICT4D Collective (http://www.ict4d.org.uk) at Royal Holloway, University of London, which was

recognised in the 2012 GoTo Think Tank Report as being the 10th top science and technology think

tank in the world. Previously, from 2001-2004 he led the UK Prime Minister’s Imfundo:

Partnership for IT in Education initiative based within the Department for International

Development, and from 2007-2011 he was Director and then Senior Advisor to the World Economic

Forum’s Partnerships for Education programme with UNESCO. He is the author or editor of 15

books, and has written more than 200 research papers, chapters and other publications on subjects

as diverse as the history of wine, the philosophy of geography and critiques of development theory.

http://www.cprsouth.org/


189

His latest collaborative book, entitled simply ICT4D, was published by Cambridge University Press

in 2009. He is a Fellow of Education Impact and Honorary Professor at Lanzhou University,

China. (Source: http//:ww.itu.int/)

i Software technology is the instructions, programmes, or suite of programmes which are used to

direct the operation of a computer, or other hardware (meadows et al., 1987, cited in Heeks, 1996,

p. 26). Source: Mukerji, 2013, p. 243

ii Hardware technology is the mechanical, magnetic, electronic, and electrical components making

up a computer system (Heeks, 1996, p. 26). Source: Mukerji, 2013, p. 243

iii

The GITR series has been published by the World Economic Forum in partnership with INSEAD

since 2002. The Global Information Technology Report 2014 features the latest results of the NRI,

offering an overview of the current state of ICT readiness in the world. This year’s coverage

includes a record number of 148 economies, accounting for over 98 percent of global GDP. The

GITR has accompanied and monitored ICT progress for more than a decade and raised awareness

of the importance of ICTs for long-term competitiveness and well-being. Source: Bilbao-Osorio,

Soumitra and Lanvin (eds.), 2014, preface v.

iv The DOI is a standard tool that governments, operators, development agencies, researchers and

others can use to measure the digital divide and compare ICT performance within and across

countries. […] The DOI has been compiled for 181 economies for a period of three years from

2004-2006. An even longer time series for 62 leading economies for the period 2000-2006 is also

available. Source: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/doi/index.html, retrieved November 26, 2014

v GDP at purchaser's prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the

economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products.

It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and

degradation of natural resources. Data are in current U.S. dollars. Dollar figures for GDP are

converted from domestic currencies using single year official exchange rates. For a few countries

where the official exchange rate does not reflect the rate effectively applied to actual foreign

exchange transactions, an alternative conversion factor is used .

Source: https://www.data.worldbank.org, retrieved November 26, 2014

vi PPP GDP is gross domestic product converted to international dollars using purchasing power

parity rates. An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GDP as the U.S. dollar

has in the United States. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the

economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products.

It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and

degradation of natural resources. Data are in current international dollars. For most economies

PPP figures are extrapolated from the 2011 International Comparison Program (ICP) benchmark

estimates or imputed using a statistical model based on the 2011 ICP. For 47 high- and upper

middle-income economies conversion factors are provided by Eurostat and the Organisation for

Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Source: https://www.data.worldbank.org,

retrieved November 26, 2014

http://www.itu.int/

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/doi/index.html

https://www.data.worldbank.org/


190

vii

GDP per capita is gross domestic product divided by midyear population. GDP is the sum of

gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any

subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for

depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data are in

current U.S. dollars. Source: https://www.data.worldbank.org, retrieved November 26, 2014

viii

Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index measuring average achievement in

three basic dimensions of human development—a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent

standard of living. Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en, retrieved November 26, 2014

ix Varna is any one of the four traditional social classes of India. Although the literal meaning of

the word varna (Sanskrit: “colour”) once invited speculation that class distinctions were originally

based on differences in degree of skin pigmentation between an alleged group of lighter-skinned

invaders called “Aryans” and the darker indigenous people of ancient India, this theory has been

discredited since the mid-20th century. The notion of “colour” was most likely a device of

classification. Colours were frequently used as classifiers; e.g., the Vedic scripture known as the

Yajurveda is divided into two groups of texts, White and Black.

The varnas have been known since a hymn in the Rigveda (the oldest surviving Indian text) that

portrays the Brahman (priest), the Kshatriya (noble), the Vaishya (commoner), and the Shudra

(servant) issued forth at creation from the mouth, arms, thighs, and feet of the primeval person

(purusha). Males of the first three varnas are “twice-born” (dvija): after undergoing the ceremony

of spiritual rebirth (upanayana), they are initiated into manhood and are free to study the Vedas,

the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. The Shudra live in service to the other three. The Vaishya, in

turn, as common people, grazers, and cultivators, contrast with the governing classes—i.e., the

secular Kshatriya, or barons, and the sacerdotal Brahmans. Brahmans and Kshatriya themselves

contrast in that the former are the priests, while the latter have the actual dominion. In the older

description, far greater emphasis is placed on the functions of the classes than on hereditary

membership, in contradistinction to caste, which emphasizes heredity over function.

The system of the four classes (caturvarnya) is fundamental to the views the traditional lawgivers

held of society. They specified a different set of obligations for each: the task of the Brahman is to

study and advise, the baron to protect, the Vaishya to cultivate, and the serf to serve. History shows,

however, that the four-class system was more a social model than a reality. The multitudinousness

of castes (or jati) is explained as the result of hypergamous and hypogamous alliances between the

four classes and their descendants. The inclusion of the Shudra into the four-varna system bestowed

on them a measure of dignity. A move to accommodate still others not so distinguished led to the

rather unofficial acceptance of a fifth class, the pancama (Sanskrit: “fifth”), which include the

“untouchable” classes and others, such as tribal groups, who are outside the system and,

consequently, avarna (“classless”). In modern times, traditional Hindus, awakened to the inequities

of the caste system yet believing the four-varna system to be fundamental to the good society, have

often advocated a return to this clear-cut varna system by reforming castes. Individual castes, in

turn, have sought to raise their social rank by identifying with a particular varna and demanding its

privileges of rank and honour.

Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/623520/varna, retrieved November 26, 2014


http://hdr.undp.org/en

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/623520/varna

191

x Jati is derived from the Sanskrit jāta, “born” or “brought into existence,” and indicates a form of

existence determined by birth. In Indian philosophy, jati (genus) describes any group of things that

have generic characteristics in common. Sociologically, jati has come to be used universally to

indicate a caste group among Hindus.

Although the lawgivers of the traditional Hindu codes (Dharma-shastras) themselves tend to treat

jatis as varnas (social classes) and try to account on other occasions for jatis as products of

alliances between the four varnas (Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras) and their

descendants, a sharp distinction should be made between jati as a limited regional endogamous

group of families and varna as a universal all-Indian model of social class. The official Hindu view

gives second place to jati as an aberration of varna.

In different parts of India, certain caste groups have sought respectability within the varna system

by claiming membership in a particular varna. Typical and most successful was the claim of the

Rajputs that they were the Kshatriyas, or nobles, of the second varna, and, to reinforce their claim,

they invented a new lineage (Agnikula, the dynasty of Fire) to coexist side by side with the Solar

and Lunar lineages of ancient times. Those people classified among the Scheduled Castes (also

called Dalits; formerly “untouchables”) have adopted caste habits of conduct and sought the status

of Shudra (the lowest varna) to escape from their pitiable condition.

The very notion of jati has been under attack by reform-minded Indians. They do not always ask for

total abolition but frequently advocate a purification of the system by the reabsorption of the jatis

into the original, complementarily functioning varnas.

Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/301596/jati , retrieved November 26, 2014

xi Effective teledensity may be defined as either the 'teledensity' (measure of telephone lines per 100

inhabitants) or the ‘mobidensity’ (measure of mobile cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants) –

whichever is higher. Source: Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development , 2005, p. 7

xii

telecentre.org is a collaborative initiative that supports and strengthens the telecenter

movement. It was founded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Swiss

Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and Microsoft®. Source : Fillip and Foote, 2007,

p. 9

xiii The SARI project is a collaborative research venture including several organizations: the

Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.), Madras; Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard

Law School; Georgia Institute of Technology; I-Gyan Foundation; and n-Logue Communications

Pvt. Ltd. It uses a Wireless-in-Local Loop (WLL) technology to provide internet connectivity to

rural villages. Internet connectivity is offered to the local community through kiosks, which are run

as self-sustained businesses with cost recovery through service charges. A majority of the kiosks are

locally owned and operated by self-employed entrepreneurs, while some are operated by self-help

groups from a local non-governmental organization. Technical support for all the kiosks is

provided by n-Logue Communications. The project had established 39 village kiosks by August

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/301596/jati

192

2003 when this field study was conducted. Out of these 39 kiosks, 20 were being run by local self-

employed entrepreneurs while the remaining 19 were being run by the local NGO mentioned above.

Source: Kumar and Best, 2006, pp. 2-3

xiv

Broadband connectivity project: […] In late 2010, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

(TRAI) proposed the National Broadband Plan (NBP), an ambitious project that aims to use Rs 600

billion of investment to bring high-speed connectivity to PCs in 160 million households. The plan

outlines setting up of State Optic Fibre Agencies (SOFA) in each state and another National Optic

Fibre Agency (NOFA). Under the NBP, the Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL), a special

purpose vehicle, was set up by the government. The objective of BBNL is to manage and operate the

National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN). The NOFN will eventually provide connectivity to 250,000

Gram Panchayats. If realised, it has the potential to transform many aspects of India, including

areas such as education, business, entertainment, environment, health households and e-

governance services […]. Source: http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/indias-fantastic-

broadband-project-that-you-should-know-about-81871.html

Accessed : 22th of November, 2014

xv

E-governement: The term e-government is generally used to describe the delivery of services via

network technologies to citizens, businesses and government agencies such as customs clearance,

tax payments or licence processing. It encompasses both the ‘front-office’ and ‘back-office’ use of

ICTs to support the business processes that a government performs, typically the provision of

information and services (see Anttiroiko and Malkia, 2006; Cordella, 2007; Department of

Economic and Social Affairs, 2007). Source: Unwin, 2009, p. 283

xvi

The OMC provides a user-friendly interface to the system administrator/Operator. OMC

handles system administration, maintenance, call control, billing, traffic measurement and

subscriber functions. Source: http://www.bbs.com.sg/wll.html, retrieved December 7, 2014

xvii

The BSD is an optional unit used for the remote deployment of base stations through an E1 link

over microwave, fiber or copper links. Each BSD can support upto four base.

Source: http://www.bbs.com.sg/wll.html, retrieved December 7, 2014

xviii

The Relay Base Station extends the range of the DECLoop™ system by relaying DECT

packets between the CBS and subscriber units. The RBS can handle 11 calls simultaneously.


xix

The CBS is a small, unobtrusive pole or wall mounted unit providing 12 simultaneous speech

channels. Each CBS can serve 30-70 subscribers and to cater for high subscriber densities, several

CBSs can be co-located. Source: http://www.bbs.com.sg/wll.html, retrieved December 7, 2014

xx

The DIU is a DECT exchange for wireless subscribers and provides an interface to the Public

Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Functions such as call processing, CBS powering and

PCM/ADPCM transcoding are handled by the DIU.


http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/indias-fantastic-broadband-project-that-you-should-know-about-81871.html

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193

xxi

The BSD is an optional unit used for the remote deployment of base stations through an E1 link

over microwave, fiber or copper links. Each BSD can support up to four base.


xxii The ReMeDi system was developed by the Neurosynaptic Communications Private Ltd. in

Bangalore, India. The kit includes the following main parts:

ReMeDi Kit – The main box with LED indicators for the measurement

parameters, battery status indicator and a fuse

Software CD – Includes software for the normal operation of the ReMeDi kit and

for acquiring data from the remote site, displaying it on the screen, storing and

viewing at a later time. The software is compatible on various Windows

platforms.

ECG probe with four limb electrodes and six chest electrodes

Temperature probe

Blood pressure probe

Stethoscope probe

Power cord

The ReMeDi system operates in two main modes – Standalone doctor mode and Remote doctor /

patient mode. In the standalone mode the physician is using the kit locally. In the remote doctor and

patient mode, the physician connects to the kiosk PC by dialing an IP address. When the kiosk PC

connects as the remote patient PC, the diagnostic data transfer is enabled. Either the physician’s

PC can establish a connection to the kiosk PC or vice versa. The user can then create a record for

the patient and store every interaction with the patient, as a separate case. The blood pressure,

temperature, ECG and stethoscope readings are stored in the patient record and will be available,

when viewing the medical history. A sample interaction session is shown in Figure 3 below.

The most important feature of the ReMeDi kit is the remote patient parameters measurement

function. Through this, the physician is able to obtain medical parameter measures from the patient

remotely. This function can be invoked only by the physician and not by the patient. The stethoscope

equipment and the thermometer for remote measurement are shown in Figures 4(a) and 4(b).

Similar to a regular stethoscope, the remote measurement stethoscope has to be placed at various

locations in the patient’s chest as shown in Figure 5(a). The data from the stethoscope

measurement is shown on the screen as a graph as in Figure 5(b). The electrocardiograph and the

blood pressure probe for remote measurement are shown in figure 6(a) and 6(b).


194

The ReMeDi toolkit provides software application functionality for viewing the parameters

measured from each of these probes. It also provides functionality for storage, viewing and

reporting on various historical measures for the patient.

Source: Dakshinamoorthy and Gordon, 2007, pp. 5-8

xxiv

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments have conferred the right on every registered

voter to directly participate in Governance. The Gram Sabha and Ward Sabhas are the

institutionalized foundations for decentralized participatory democracy. The Gram Sabha and

Ward Sabha have to play a key role in rendering the Gram Panchayat transparent and directly a

accountable to the people. The Grama Sabha is a means to solve people’s problems and felt needs

and to decide how to use the available resources optimally in ways desired by them, to benefit the

poorest in the village through direct democratic and participatory planning. The role of Gram

Sabha is vital in bringing good governance in the local self governments. […]

Source: http://wikieducator.org/Apard/Gramsabha, retrieved December 7, 2014

xxv

Drishtee kiosk at Kesrapur in Bithri Chainpur taluka [Uttar Pradesh] was located 22

kilometers from the district town of Bareilly in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It had an

area of 90.25 sq kms and population of 3771 in 586 households (Government of India, 2001). The

sex ratio was 874. Kesarpur was a fairly large village as compared to its neighbouring 20-5

villages and acted as a junction point for the cluster of villages. It was not well connected by road

and various modes of transport with neighbouring vilages and big towns like Bareilly, Rithura, et.

and hence attracted people from nearby rural and urban areas.[…] While the village had no

cellular service providers, but being proximate to big towns, signal was available at most places

and hence mobile phones were fairly common. The village was electrified in 1976 and 80 per cent

of the houses had electricity connections.[…] At Kesarpur, households belonging to the same

religion or caste community were clustered at one place and, each custer was separated from the

other by kuccha brick-laid lanes. In general, social interactions between middle- and upper-class

families of both the religion communities were very limited. […] The children and women hesitated

to move around freely in the area dominated by other communities. Most women especially those

belonging to Muslim communities, rarely ventured out of the boundaries of their own immediate

communities. […] Source: Mukerji, 2013, pp. 120-122

http://wikieducator.org/Apard/Gramsabha

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