Singh, Part 3
2. Initiatives, Opportunities and Prospects
India is a multicultural, multi–language and multi–religion country with complex socio–economic conditions. The growing population, insufficient funds, and delays in implementation of government policies and programmes have been some of the challenges that have lead to unequal development in the society. While some people are rich and have many resources, others do not. The educational system of India also has been slow to achieve the set target framed by various commissions and committees and schemes launched from time to time. Although the country has increased its literacy rate to an encouraging 65.38 percent according to the 2001 census, more needs to be done. The government has made encouraging steps to improve the lives of common people through several IT–oriented projects. Some of the efforts made towards bridging the gap are discussed as follows:
2.1 Infrastructure development in bridging the digital divide
2.2 Role of government programmes for e–governance
2.3 Role of community information centres (CIC)
2.4 Role of libraries and information centres
2.5 Role of academic institutions
2.6 Efforts made by private business houses
2.7 Role of dot–com companies
2.1 Infrastructure development in bridging the digital divide
The basic requirement for reducing the digital divide for countries is to give priority to the development of their telecommunication and IT infrastructure in order to provide universal and affordable access to information to people in all geographical areas of the country.
The government of India celebrated the year 2003 as the 150th year of Indian communication and telegraphy. The country has travelled a long way in improving its telecom sector. At the time of independence there were only 80,000 telephone subscribers and that was mostly in government organisations. Until the 1980s telecom was not a priority. However, the formulation of the National Telecom Policy in 1994 and later improvements made in the policy in 1999 led to a significant growth in the telecom sector, with corporatisation of telecom services in 2000. The density of telephones has already increased from 1.44 percent to more than six percent. The cellular mobile sector has also grown exponentially from 1.2 million to more than 19 million subscribers. As well, the rural teledensity has increased from 0.4 percent to 1.5 percent [4].
The Honourable Prime Minister has recently launched a pilot project of Rupees 3 crore (Ed. note: 30 million Rupees), the “Grameen Sancahar Sewak” project, in a bid to promote telecom services for rural people using WLL (Wireless in Local Loop) technology. The project has been conceptualised to provide accessibility to public telephone service to rural populations at their doorstep by worldwide Web technology. The scheme would be implemented through the Gameen Dak Sewak (Village Post delivery agents). These agents would work as the franchisees of the telecom department. The agents would be provided wireless telephones with display facilities, so when an agent goes to houses to deliver letters, he would carry a fixed wireless telephone to facilitate phone service to all citizens of that area. In the initial phase this pilot project would cover about 800 villages in 21 telecom circles covering all the states except Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Haryana and Punjab. About 1,800 village postal agents would be used for this purpose [5].
The IT infrastructure, particularly the penetration of information technology, has improved but a lot still needs to be done particularly in rural and remote areas. According to the International Data Corporation, the estimate of Internet users was around one million, which reached to more than five million in 2003–2004, making India the fourth largest international market in Asia. Growth will depend on low–cost access, low–cost personal computers and Internet cable, and increasing competitive Internet service providers (ISP), which is now becoming a reality. According to the largest projection of GOI and NASSCOM, the total Internet connection and users reached 15 million and 50 million by the end of the year 2003 [6].
The rapid advancement in the IT industry and its impact on society has brought significant social changes. Earlier, people were reluctant to plunge into IT communication. Now all states have had a sudden change in their thinking and are coming to vital decisions to boost their IT sector.
The government of India has declared IT as one of the thrust areas for the country’s development and has recognized it as an essential service. States like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharastra, West Bengal and now Tamil Naidu have been playing a significant role in introducing IT for industrial and economic development. These states have active action plans emphasizing the growth of IT industries that will extend the benefits of IT application to all types of industries, enterprises, and private and public organisations and institutions. Several state governments have started investing in an IT infrastructure for e–governance projects. The government has realised the need to focus their efforts on initiatives that can reduce the cost of operating government agencies, such as Web–enabled human resources and financial management systems.