TARAhaat.com is not alone in its endeavour to make a difference to people’s lives. There are other initiatives - some with a single focus in terms of geographical extent or subject area but with common end objectives. These initiatives aim at one or all of the following:

Rural Development through –
w information dissemination
w awareness generation
w bridging the technology gap between rural and urban India
w establishing efficient delivery mechanisms

Illustrated below are some relevant examples.

Gyandoot
http://www.gyandoot.net/

Winner of the Stockholm Challenge Award and the CSI National IT Award in 2000, Gyandoot is an Intranet in Dhar district, connecting rural cybercafes catering to the everyday needs of the masses. As many as 21 Internet cyber cafes, named as suchanalayas, have been started in five blocks of Dhar district under the Gyandoot project, according to The Hindu, Delhi January 14, 2000.

The Gyandoot Intranet seeks to take this technology directly to the people. In the Gyandoot effort, the people take full charge of running, developing and supporting the network on a sustainable basis.

This web site www.gyandoot.net is an extension of the Gyandoot Intranet. The site has planned for a number of services to be offered in addition to the hope that it has generated by networking, such as a Commodity/ mandi Marketing Information Systems, income, domicile and caste certificates, Hindi e-mail facility, public grievance redressal, forms of various government schemes etc.

Revenue Department (Government of Karnataka)
http://revdept.kar.nic.in

This site is all about focussed delivery- about issues related to the revenue department and its services.
The department deals with implementation of agrarian reform acts like the Land Reform Act and various related acts like the Village Office Abolition Acts. It deals with the distribution of surplus land to poor tenants, agricultural labourers etc and is responsible for acquisition of land for public purposes like irrigation projects, power projects etc. It also processes various requests for grant of land to individuals and organisations.

Most of the information on the above and much more is made available through their website.

Swayam Krishi Sangam
http://www.sksindia.org/

Swayam Krishi Sangam’s mission is to empower the poorest of the poor to become self-reliant. They do this through a community-owned grameen (village) banking program that utilizes the peer lending model developed by the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh to provide poor women loans for both income-generating activities as well as for emergencies.

SKS methodology involves several phases– a village survey, projection meeting, the formation of groups and sangams (collectives), and administration of the savings and loan program.

Toehold
http://www.toeholdindia.com/

A project for transforming artisans into entrepreneurs, the site helps traditional artisans create a market for their produce. The concept has been operationalised through Self-Help Groups (SHGs) of Kolhapuri traditional people manufacturing natural and Hand crafted Leather foot wear.

Toehold was conceptualized and implemented through the synergistic efforts of the Central Leather Research Institute, which has provided the design and technical inputs, ASCENT which created the road maps to entrepreneurial initiatives and market linkages and NLDP, which has supported the programme.

Pratham
http://www.pratham.org

Pratham was established in 1994 by UNICEF and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, with the mission to achieve "Universal Primary Education" in Mumbai by the year 2000. This mission is now growing in scope and scale. Throughout India, individuals, corporates and the state governments are taking the initiative further to ensure that every child in her/his respective city receives a formal education.

Pratishristi is Pratham’s I-T venture. Pratham has set up 12 Computer Assisted Learning Centers in municipal primary schools of Mumbai. These computers were donated by ICICI Ltd. and other corporates to provide municipal school children the opportunity to ‘play and learn’ with computers.

M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF)
http://www.mssrf.org/

The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) was established in July 1988 as a non-political Trust with a mission of harnessing science and technology for environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development. MSSRF’s research, training, communication, extension and networking programmes, in the fields of agriculture and rural development, seek to link ecological security to livelihood security in a mutually reinforcing manner.

The Foundation is funding Internet, voice, and database access to rural villagers in the Pondicherry area of India, to find out whether they would accept and use the technology.

…..and the efforts continue q