Enabling Rural Citizens through ashok Jhunjhunwala, IITM,

Innovations in ICT India, ashok@tenet.res.in

IIT Madras
Over the last two hundred years, 4 billion people in
the developing world have been left behind

 How can they stand up and be counted?

 How will they get access to resources, health and education?

 How will they be able to compete?

 How will they bridge the distance with their urban

counterparts or those in the developed world?

 India was in this category in the recent past

 Urban India has changed
 will use it as an example to talk about what can be done
India was struggling in eighties

 One had to wait for eight years to get a telephone

 Deposit money to get in a queue

 To buy a two-wheeler took four years
 Gas connection took even longer

 Importing a simple $3 microprocessor IC took one year

Life was difficult

IIT Madras
 Changing Indian Affordability:65M urban homes

25
21.2
Number of HH in millions

20
15.8
15 12.8

10

5
5.8
3.2
2001
2
0.8 0.9
0
100 180 260 360 520 840 1300 3500
Monthly Household incom e in $

30

25

20
Nos of HH in M

15

10

5
2007
0
<150 225 470 825 1560 >2075
IIT Madras Monthly HH Income in $
 Mobile Market in India boomed
5 million  50 million  150 million  400 million

Projected Nos of Subscribers in

500

 Not until Mobile Infrastructure Capex 400

< Rs 3000 per line 300

million
 and with handset price of Rs 1200 onwards
200
 service available at 50 p per minute
 ARPU of about Rs 250 100

 7 million subscribers added each month 0

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Year

Just Like number of TVs in India rose from

10 million to 100 million in 90’s when
prices became Rs 1200 onwards and cable
TV tariff fell below Rs 75 per month
•Number of TV channels boomed
•Entertainment industry in India
one of the biggest

IIT Madras
Even Airline Industry

 Is booming in India
 quadrupled its passenger carrying capacity in two years
 Average tariffs have fallen to a fourth making it affordable

to middle class Indians

 Inspite of rising petrol prices

The only limitation to growth is the airport infrastructure

IIT Madras
India on Move

 Auto Sector is booming

 R&D driven initiative: Scorpio and Tata-Indica

 India emerging as leader in auto-component design and manufacturing

 India’s cement plants in 90’s virtually closed as they could not compete
 Today India has some of the most energy efficient cement plants of
the world

 Electricity from wind energy surpasses its nuclear energy

 India’s wind energy company is the fastest growing one in the world

 Indian companies carrying out successful Drug discovery

 Spends US$50-70M as opposed to US$800M for a drug

IIT Madras
Engineering Education

 500K engineering students graduate every year from 1600

engineering colleges
 Up from 25,000 in 100 schools in early eighties

 Uneven quality is a major problem

 was foreseen and resulted in reluctance to expand

But it is this human resources which has driven growth

IIT Madras
  Growth of IT and IT enabled services is legendary
 Reaching $50 billion this year

 Trillion dollar IT Services industry being projected

The World is Flat

But you aint seen nothin yet
for the changes has not yet touched Rural India

IIT Madras
 Politically
unsustainable

But Rural India is still struggling

637,000 villages, 700 million people

Per capita GDP about $200
Can ICT make a difference?
Rural Priority is Education, Health and Livelihood

IIT Madras
 Changing Indian Affordability:150M rural homes

120
102.1
Number of HH in millions

100

80

60

40

20
17
10
2001
3.9 1.9 1 0.3 0.3
0
60 180 260 360 520 840 1300 2240
HH Incom e in $ per m onth

80

70
Nos of HH in M
60

50

40

30

20

2007 10

0
<150 225 470 825 1560 >2075
IIT Madras Monthly HH Income in $
Fibre goes deep in India

 All block headquarters are connected by optical fibre

 Most villages are within 15 Kms from Block towns

 Last mile technologies are rapidly emerging

 Broadband CorDECT WiLL developed at IITM, India

 provides a telephone line and 256 kbps Internet connection in 25 Km
radius
 Exchange and tower in town
– Works at 55 C
– Power requirement: 1 KW
– start-up costs very low

Newer technologies emerging

 Promising 1/2 Mbps connectivity
 with OFDM (like 802.16 / WiMax)
Rs 10K per line deployed
 with HDR and HSDPA
Exchange and tower in town
Innovative Business Models

 Rural Service Providers

 aggregate demand into a kiosk
 owned & driven by a local entrepreneur

 Rs 50K per Kiosk providing telephone, Internet, multimedia PC

with web-camera, printer and power back-up for PC
 plus local language software, video conferencing software, training and
maintenance and 6 months unlimited Internet

 set up by a village entrepreneur on the lines of urban PCOs

 Provides multiple services to break even
 Needs Rs5K pm to break even
Rural Services – An Overview

Capacity Building
– Education
– Health

Enabling Services
Income Generation – Finance
– Agriculture – Markets (exchanges
– Entrepreneurship /trading)
– Outsourcing – e-Governance
– Water Management
– Energy
– Communications and
Transportation
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 3- (Rating carried out on 0 to 5 scale to indicate
where India is)

Education

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

IIT Madras
Education
 Curriculum based
 Passing SSLC: excellent results

 Skill based
 Spoken English
 Computer Basics
 CAD, Web development, Photoshop
 Repair pumps, wire for electricity, carpentry

 Concept based
 Science and Business concepts

IIT Madras
From London, Boston, NY

To Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi

Then Jaipur, Mangalore, and Pune

2 Is it the turn of Shikrapur,

Modaj and Mettupalliyam?

Rural BPO

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

IIT Madras
Services Provided
….In English and Regional Languages

Audio
Recording &
Editing
Web & Overview
Engineering Multimedia
Services Development  11 Months
 50 People
ITeS
 20 Villages
Administrative  13 Clients
Service Translation

Desktop Input 2D drawing Output 3D model

Publishing
Desi Crew

 Rural BPO Services

 Administrative
 Data Entry
 Data Conversion

 Localization (English to
regional languages)
 Translation
 Voice Over

 Engineering
 2D drafting
 2D to 3D conversion

IIT Madras
 As Chennai becomes the manufacturing
hub for Nokia and BMW…

Can Pinjavakkam

1- become the production

hub for Chennai?

Rural Production

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

IIT Madras
 THE MODEL

CLIENT CLIENT CLIENT CLIENT

FOR CLIENT

• Visual Access to  Design

production  Order
• Delivery of order

ROPE

FOR WORKERS
FOR LEADER

• Infrastructure • Order
• Working Capital • Skill Enhancement
• Production Processes • Quality Management

RPC RPC RPC RPC

RPC LEADER RPC LEADER RPC LEADER RPC LEADER

RPC WORKERS RPC WORKERS RPC WORKERS RPC WORKERS

RPO: Distributed Production enabled by Internet

Outsourcing production to rural areas

 Kiosk becomes a point of co-ordination & quality

control

The ‘Crafts for Life’ projects include

 Embroidery
 Bags
 Soap
 Banana Rope
 Dry Flowers
Training in making dried banana bark rope making facilitated by ICT entrepreneur Jayamalathi at
Thirupandrutti.

• Building and Aggregating Distributed Rural Production

Units as back end for industries
• Focus Sectors: Crafts, Leather, Garments, Agro
Processing

IIT Madras
PRODUCTS ROPE

Banana Fiber Table Mat Banana Fiber Window Blind

BF with Jute Placemat Bamboo Fiber Placemat Korai Grass Runners

 Training & Recruitment: Industry Client

RTBI: Networking, ICT Kiosk: ICT

Logistics & Monitoring Operation Infrastructure and Marketing

Vocational Training
Focus Sectors:
Security Personnel
Skilled Construction Workers
Sales persons
Home Service Agents
IIT Madras
Remote Eye Care with Aravind Hospitals Vet care with Veterinary college

Telemedicine:

1+ 


Initial experiments with eye care and with Veterinary doctors
using the video conferencing tool
Moved on to video-consulting for GP & gynecology problems

Healthcare

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

IIT Madras
 ReMeDi™ Tele-medicine solution
Kiosk
Operator
Local Pharma
Healthcare Delivery Partner Companies
Hosp

Identification of village healthcare delivery centers ReMeDi™ Telemedicine Kit

Linkage with a hospital partner via ReMeDi™
telemedicine solution
RP RP RP RP
Supply and delivery of essential medicines

IIT Madras
 1-
Agriculture

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

IIT Madras
Managing Risks for farmers

Crop disease: Use of video conferencing to connect farmer

to an agricultural Expert
 Obtaining answers before it is too late

The problem was

sent to the experts at
the Department of
Rural Extension,
Madurai Agricultural
College and Research
Before Centre who

In a Village in Madurai,
diagnosed it as After
“Yellow Mosaic
the Lady’s Finger disease”
(Okra) crop
was turning white
Production and Price Risk Coverage

 Rain-fall insurance
 Micro-weather Measurement and prediction
 Collect weather data at each village
– Temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed,
wind direction and rainfall
 Weather Monitoring Kit : Rs 15K

 Market risk: use of commodity exchanges

forward pricing and Options
 Can one get small farmers to use it?

IIT Madras
Agriculture

 Agro Processing
 Agricultural Advisory Services
 Agricultural Supply Chain Management
 Focus: Fruits and Vegetables in Theni District of Tamil Nadu
 Strategy: To link markets, banks, extension partners and suppliers
to small farmers
Facilitate Sales and post-harvest support

 Use of Village Internet kiosk and mobile phones for

 Obtaining market-prices in different Markets
 Transaction and deal-closing from villages

 Scheduling delivery

 Booking of transport

 Direct payment through banks and loan repayment

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 1
Financial Services

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

IIT Madras
Financing by banks from towns is expensive

Is Microfinance the answer

 Has made great strides, but what is the interest rate?

 At 24 to 30% interest rate it is good loan for

– Trading and Short term consumption loans
– But not for any manufacturing / agriculture?

 Can kiosks become mini-banks?

 Internet banking: But how will cash be delivered?

 Can kiosks carry out credit-rating of rural people?

 What about Insurance?

 Can they enable different kinds of insurance?

 Life Insurance, health insurance, General Insurance, rainfall insurance

IIT Madras
We could put Internet in every village but for its cost?

 TeNeT / VorTex develops ATM

 Finger print detection
 Internet kiosk based or Stand alone
 Deliver even soiled notes
 Single denomination today
 Can be extended to multiple denomination

 Electronic Lock operated using finger print detection

 Cost about Rs 60K for kiosk ATM / Rs 75K for stand
alone

Vortex GramaTeller initiative, reducing

the cost of ATM to 1/15th
Towards Credit Rating
 0+
Rural Business, Transportation, Energy & others

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

IIT Madras
Rural Businesses

 Agriculture, food processing & other small businesses

 Can they be enabled by ICT kiosks?
 Does technology play a significant role in supply chain management
& co-ordination?
 Can they be used for market linkages & pricing mechanisms?
 Can kiosks be used to find jobs?

Exploring to understand the evolution of rural businesses

and the role of technology in such businesses

IIT Madras
Decentralized Energy

 Grid based Power Supply

 Quality and availability
 Urban Power will take precedence
 Rural India will only get overflow

 Each Village require 30 KW to 100 KW Power Generation

 Solar
 Biomass Combustion
 Biogas
 Bio-diesel

 Can kiosk be used to enable this?

Community Oriented Services

 Rural Development programs

 Water Management
 Soil Management
 Road construction
 Social harmony and religious tolerance
 Promoting entrepreneurship

IIT Madras
  ICT can provide opportunities for those who
have been left behind
 to leapfrog

 provided there is will

 Requires
 Confidence, Local technologies & Services

and lots of hard work

 Rural Areas in emerging Markets can follow
their urban counterpart

To Sum Up

Towards enabling Rural Areas….

Today

 India consumes
 Less than one twentieth of per capita resource as compared to that in
the West
 as per International Energy Agency Statistics Division, India consumed
512.4 Kg of oil equivalent of energy per person as opposed to 7794 Kg
of oil equivalent per person in USA in 2003

 If India and China grow like West?

 And their per capita resource consumption of 1.4 billion Chinese
and 1.1 billion Indians reach the level in the West

This can not be our future

 Nature is already retaliating
 Technology can help but cant support consumption beyond a point
A dilemma

 India and China can not be asked to wait to get out

of their deprived state

 AND they can not grow and acquire the same

lifestyle as that of the West

IIT Madras
Need

 To redefine development
 Not accept the industrial revolution Development paradigm
 Technology can find all the answers
 Urban life is better life

 Good life need not imply

 Such large consumption

 Migrating Rural Indians to Urban areas is not the answer

 With health, education, a bit of infrastructure and livelihood
opportunity, life in Rural India may be better than in urban areas

IIT Madras
Urban India and China has done well

 Growth in China stupendous

 India started late, but is racing today

 But most growth limited to urban areas

 Rural Areas are being left behind
 700M out of 1 B people live in Rural India

IIT Madras