Paula Ray

Paula Ray

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Paula Ray explains how the mobile telephony revolution in the country via m-Governance is aimed at ‘inclusive growth’ of the economy.

In 2007, Amy Lee of Financial Times walked the barren terrains of Fatehpur, an isolated hamlet in Bihar, one the poorest states of the country, in search of the ephemeral telecommunications revolution supposedly gripping this developing economy. Yes, it was still at a developing stage at that time and so she had to travel 70 km through “narrow, painfully potholed roads” across “bleak farmland and congested towns” before she could spot the first telephone tower. Today, the potholed narrow roads may still be in place and the congestion is perhaps no less than before, but something about the place has changed dramatically – it is the connectivity of such remote towns with the main economic hubs. The inhabitants may not get a square meal a day or even have proper access to electricity, but each family has at least one mobile phone connection to boast of.

After two decades of its evolution in India, the usage of mobile telephony is no longer limited to a communication tool – to make phone calls or to send and receive text and voice messages – but it has evolved as the prime technology that has helped bridge the rich-poor divided between urban and rural India. It has not only given the socio-economically downtrodden villagers a voice by helping them reach out to fellow residents in distant villages, but has also provided several hundreds and thousands of youth with direct or indirect job opportunities. Among the urban populace, mobile telephony has taken over the role of an all-encompassing service provider – from banking transactions and educational information to train booking and infotainment.

It is mobile governance that is perhaps helping the Indian government achieve “inclusive growth” which was laid down as one of the principal objectives of the Eleventh Five-year Plan (2001-2012) to overcome the ever-widening disparities in the economic conditions of the people. If we consider statistical data, India is the fourth largest global economy in terms of purchasing power parity. And, with its billion plus population, it is the dream market of any multinational company. But it is still considered a developing country, mainly because the ever-increasing disposable income among its people is restricted to a certain section of the urban society. The wealth of the nation seldom percolates to the 70 per cent who inhabit in the rural areas of the country, mainly due to lack of proper infrastructure and deep-seated corruption within the system. To arrest this economic and the consequent digital divide, mobile telephony has emerged as a crucial tool. It is bringing the solitary rural destinations closer together in miraculously cost-effective ways.

A report released by global consultancy group Deloitte focuses on how the mobile telephone can be used to digitally empower people across all socio-economic strata. Since urban India already has 100 per cent saturation, the next wave of subscription will come from rural areas where there is 35 per cent penetration so far. It is no wonder then that mobile phone service providers are not stopping short of all marketing gimmicks up their sleeves to lure prospective subscribers. If they cannot sign their names, a thumb impression is all they need. If they are daily wage earners with limited disposable income to invest on phone bills, minimum top-ups are made available to them. The service providers have realised that they cannot look for profit from usage among rural users. So their main emphasis is to maximize subscription from that market.

Jo Tacchi, an Australian academic who has conducted research on radio and the internet in India, talks about her field study in semi-urban and rural areas of the country. Through her survey she concluded that armed with a mobile handset, a woman not only feels more secure socially, but it also provides her with increased professional opportunities. At a personal level, it is facilitating communication unheard of before in the Indian cultural context. Because of mobile telephony, a mother can connect with her married daughter and ask her about stuff that cannot be discussed on a public phone. The daughter too has the privacy to discuss her concerns with her mother and friends, without the fear of being overheard by her husband or his family with whom she resides in the same house. This marks a significant shift in the “communication ecologies” of women in India.

But it is the mobile content service providers, who are making the most of the situation. Ravi Ghate’s NASSCOM award winning project SMSONE is based out of Pune and operational only in a few states in western and southern India. It revolves around the concept of “mobile journalists” who comprise school dropouts from rural areas. They deliver community specific news for free to people living in some of India’s most unconnected areas, along with paid promotional messages. The ratio is of one free to four revenue generating messages per month and the mode of communication is basic text messaging service. For this local newsletter aimed at “the base of the pyramid”, Ghate scouts villages for unemployed youth with good local sales or campaign experience and helps them make a decent living – but it’s never enough to make them so ambitious as to pack up and leave for the big city life. The employee gets a social standing, but what the subscribers get is very powerful for a democracy. Armed with just a basic mobile phone, no TV or local newspaper and infrequent electricity supply, the farmers can instantly track updates on crop pricing or news of a seed or fertilizer delivery often a few towns away. Accordingly, the farmers plan their trips judiciously on a day when they are certain to benefit from and avoid wasting time and energy on a futile travel only to come back empty-handed.

On the other hand, 3G services are facilitating urban consumers with mobile internet, by making the handsets available at very reasonable rates. This usage has become so popular that India is reported to have the second largest user of mobile internet in the world, only second to the US. Once 3G is available in vernacular languages, it will help rural users to catch up with the trend.

Given the immense possibilities of mobile telephony in the country, the Department of Information Technology of the Government of India has initiated the formulation of a comprehensive policy framework on mobile governance, popularly referred to as m-Governance, which is expected to be operational by September. It can enable citizens to use their mobile phone connection to file for IT returns and pay for public services. The government is already using text messaging to make public announcements with regard to agriculture, health and administration to even simple chores like tracking the cleaning of garbage bins in particular corporations and municipalities. The multiple-access channels of SMS, GPS and GPRS help in real-time monitoring. So much so that Bihar State Road Corporation deployed GPS enabled mobile phones to monitor road construction in the state earlier this year.

Internet, especially broadband connectivity, is relatively under-developed in India. Besides, the price of a basic computer system still remains beyond the reach of rural population, who can easily afford a low-end mobile handset. This restriction to access of e-Governance services via the traditional medium of computer has enabled m-Governance to rise as the preferred method. As compared to 80 million internet users in the country, there were 771 million mobile phone users around January – the figure is expected to rise to a billion by 2012. That is a number difficult to ignore!

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