Information when widely disseminated, understood and utilised, contributes to reducing the socio-economic disparities in the society. Communication has become increasingly important in today’s context as it brings about awareness, leading to social change and development. While the poor in general face a severe deficit in information, it is especially acute for the rural poor who also suffer from lack of infrastructure, access to information and expertise, thus making available and affordable technologies inaccessible. For women, lack of information on simple information related to health and home, agricultural practices and natural resource management continues to perpetuate their disempowerment. Lack of information on various technologies, government schemes and skill development trainings block the path to progress for the youth. Information that improves agricultural practices and provides market options may help increase the productivity and thus lead to prosperity of farmers. Communication on government reform processes and their opportunities and consequences may enhance the decision -making abilities of the masses.

Social communication is an interactive process between the society, the information providers and researchers through print or electronic media. The nature of media plays a vital role in social communication. For example, the print media becomes ineffective in situations where there is a high number of illiterates. Thus, information on public good brought out by government agencies never reaches those who need it the most. Electronic media or information communication technology (ICTs) can serve as an effective tool by accelerating knowledge transfer and allowing societies to acquire and share ideas, expertise, services, and technologies locally, regionally, as also across the world.

India has made impressive growth in ICT but rural India is yet to harness the benefits. Efforts to bridge the digital gap are being made by developing communication technologies and infrastructures such as the Internet, rural radio and mobile phones. A brief discussion in the following sections illustrates how communication needs and available channels are showing tremendous changes in rural areas:

Community Radio

Radio has been playing an important role in disseminating information and creating awareness among rural people on various topics such as improved techniques of agriculture production, health and hygiene, and other community development programmes. This media has been extensively used by both the Government and non-governmental agencies to tackle issues such as adult literacy, poverty, health care and population. But lack of accessibility and participation in the commercial media has created limitations in meeting the local needs at the grassroots. This is where local and community media such as the Community Radio is quietly and consistently making a difference.

Community radio is a low-cost technology model which creates awareness and addresses access issues of the poorest of the communities. It is an effective tool which is by the people and for the people. The language is in local dialect and the subjects are common to the entire community. Over the long term, people can help contextualise national development programmes within community frameworks and bring these goals closer to their intended beneficiaries. With 57 community radio stations in the country so far, and counting, this medium is seen as addressing small communities and meeting an individual’s day-to-day concerns and local needs in a significant way.

Mobile Communication

According to the latest data available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), rural wireless teledensity has almost doubled to 15.35% from 8.73% and by the end of 2008, three-quarters of India’s population has been covered by mobile networks. Many of these new Donationrs live in rural areas with scarce infrastructure and facilities, high illiteracy levels, low computer and internet penetration.

The dramatic spread of mobile phones provides opportunities to extend a range of services to rural areas and revolutionising their economic and social life. Mobile communication in rural India is spawning a wave of local entrepreneurs by significantly changing the logistical issues faced by rural traders and home entrepreneurs. Services such as mobile-based ordering systems, delivery requests, and the ability to make more reliable and advance arrangements with business partners or clients can help in business development. In case of farmers, it is creating logistics revolution in farms to retail marketing and connecting them to food retailers, enabling them to sell the produce at high prices without delay. Mobile communication services can also add significantly to healthcare information, education and governance.

Satellite Communication

Communication services via satellite have the ability to reach out to multiple regions and remote areas and thus add a considerable value in transforming the rural society and economy. Remote sensing can provide information on land, natural resources, watershed attributes, environment, infrastructure-related information, cropping patterns, weather, disaster management support, community based vulnerability and risk-related information.

In order to provide these space-based services to the rural areas, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has initiated a programme to set up Village Resource Centres (VRCs) in partnership with the concerned states, central agencies and various NGOs, Trusts and other agencies. VRCs essentially have a digital connectivity with knowledge centres with a host of information pertaining to management of natural resources, healthcare services and distance education, etc. These VRCs interact with the rural communities using video conferencing.

Development Alternatives Initiatives

The Development Alternatives (DA) Group has been communicating information and knowledge with an objective to create awareness and increase societal development. Information on issue such as literacy rate among rural masses, agro advisory services to assist farmers increase their produce, generate employment opportunities in the rural sector and environmental issues has been provided. Some of the channels used by the Group have been discussed below:

• The Community Radio, known as Radio Bundelkhand 90.4 has been launched in association with UNESCO in Madhya Pradesh, India. It is a platform that enables the people to gain wider access to information, understand their own needs, express their concerns, be heard, with the hope that their issues are looked at and solutions found for bringing together the means for improving their lives. This not only creates confidence to tackle their problems but also leads to the desired social change

• The use of mobile communication is illustrated through the Lifeline Project. A farmer, with the help of a volunteer, calls up a phone number and puts up a query that is recorded and stored in a computer. The farmer gets a reference number for his/her query. Knowledge workers from agri-business organisations analyse these calls and collate appropriate answers. These answers are stored in the computer against the reference number for retrieval by the farmer when he/she calls back again for the answer. The answers are to be given within 24 hours. The information can also be retrieved in text format from the Information Centre near the village. The farmers can send pictures along with their questions, and also provide voice clips to clarify on the issue. This application has the potential to address a large variety of knowledge and information for problems at the local levels such as education, health, livelihoods, grievances, RTI, etc.

A Farmer Registering His Query

Development Alternatives in association with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is running a Village Resource Centre (VRC) project established jointly by ISRO and the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF). This partnership has been made with the intention to uplift the life and livelihood of rural areas. It aims to promote a single window delivery of need-based services in the areas of education, health, nutrition, weather, environment, agriculture and alternate livelihoods to the rural population. It will help launch a knowledge revolution in rural India that is designed to enhance the ecological and livelihood security of the people. VRC is used to disseminate information and knowledge on diverse issues of the community interests through a totally interactive VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) based network. At present, DA has two networks of 15 VRCs in central and eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh and a second network of 13 VRCs in Bihar. q

Sushmita Das
sdas@devalt.org


Back to Contents