The current extent and pattern of diffusion of telecommunication technology in India suggests that it will perpetuate the top-down approach to development, keeping the disadvantaged out of the process.
INFORMATION released recently seems to suggest that India's telecommunications sector is witnessing a transformation that is revolutionising the state of domestic connectivity. Telephone density, which is seen as a measure of the extent of connectivity and the benefits it can bring, is estimated at 5 per 100 inhabitants as on March 31, 2003, compared with only 1.39 as recently as end-March 1994. This growth in connectivity is expected to increase substantially interactive communication between distant centres, permit improved governance through the more efficient delivery of information and a range of social services in rural areas as well as expand access to the Internet and the benefits it can provide. Assuming that the government is able to put in place the information technology (IT) infrastructure needed to exploit the benefits of such connectivity, the country seems to be well on its way to realising its goal of delivering IT to the masses, to supplement the benefits from the autonomous growth of IT-use in the urban areas epitomised by the burgeoning revenues from exports of IT-enabled and software services.
There are indeed many experiments under way in India, which seek to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to improve the quality of life of the disadvantaged. One ongoing data base compiled by IT for Change, a non-governmental organisation located in Bangalore, already includes around 150 such experiments and the actual number is likely to be much higher. While a few of these are relatively large in scale and some others have the potential for being scaled up from their current pilot status, most are of relatively recent origin and are yet to establish themselves as being viable from a design point of view and/or economically sustainable.
However, what these experiments do illustrate is the way in which these technologies can be used to facilitate or even serve as instruments for public action aimed at improving the quality of life of the relatively disadvantaged. They normally fall in one of four categories. To start with, there is work under way to increase access, so as to permit the realisation of the potential that ICT holds for development. The principal aims of such work include cutting the cost of connectivity, reducing hardware costs and developing software in the indigenous languages so as to overcome the barriers that language creates. The second category of experiments aims at exploiting the information collation, storage and transmission facilities that the technology offers, to increase access to information so as to strengthen advocacy, permit wider mobilisation and enhance transparency.
A third category of initiatives seeks to increase the productivity and efficiency of projects designed to improve the conditions of the disadvantaged, so as to improve the quality and reduce the costs of programmes that seek to advance human development, thereby enhancing their impact and rendering them sustainable. Finally, there are experiments seeking to use the interactive, information transmission capabilities of the technology to ensure remote delivery of crucial services such as education and health. Needless to say, there are projects which fall in more than one of these categories.
Of these, the first is indeed of great relevance. For the potential benefits of ICT to be realised on a large scale through projects of these kinds, widespread diffusion of ICT and its use is imperative. India's communications infrastructure, though witnessing rapid growth, is still limited in size and spread. The possibility of rapid spread, driven in significant measure by private initiative, is revealed by the experience with television and cable penetration. Unfortunately, in areas other than television, while diffusion is on the increase, the reach of technology in a country like India is still very limited. The most commonly used index of connectivity is tele-density or the number of telephones per 100 of the population. Telephone density, which was 0.03 lines per 100 people in 1951 rose to 1.39 in 1994, when the process of liberalisation of telecommunications policy began. Since then the rate of expansion of connectivity has indeed been rapid, with tele-density touching 3.64 lines per 100 people on March 31, 2001, 4.4 on March 31, 2002 and 5 as on March 31, 2003. However, because of a high degree of urban concentration, tele-density in rural India in 1999 was just 0.4 lines per 100 people. Rural tele-density, which crossed one per hundred in 2002, stood at 1.49 in 2003, when urban tele-density was placed at 15.49. Inter-regional variations were also substantial. As on March 31, 2003 while total teledensity in the state of Delhi was 26.85, that in Bihar was as low as 1.32.
Besides the huge rural-urban divide and the substantial inter-regional variations in tele-density, the figures also appear to be substantially influenced by the recent growth of the mobile telephony sector. As of end-March 2002, while there were 37.9 million direct exchange lines (DEL) being provided by the public sector companies (VSNL and MTNL) and 0.50 million direct exchange lines by private operators, the number of cellular phone subscribers was placed at 6.4 million or close to 16 per cent of all DELs. Since a very large proportion of cellular phone subscribers were those who subscribed to the service in addition to holding a regular landline, in order to benefit from the mobility that cellular telephony allows, the rise in telephone density as a result of an increase in cellular telephone connections can hardly be taken as indicative of the diffusion of telecommunications technology among those who were thus far marginalised from the network.
To assess the latter we need separate indicators of mass access such as the presence of public call offices (PCOs) in rural and urban areas and DELs and village public telephones (VPTs) in rural areas. These indicators are by no means encouraging. The number of PCOs, which could be converted into telecom kiosks or centres with Internet connectivity, stood at just 10.6 lakhs at the end of March 2002. This figure amounted to less than 3 per cent of the total number of DELs in the country. Further, while the population in rural areas amounted to more than 70 per cent of the total, the number of rural DELs worked out to just 23.5 per cent of the total. Finally, despite the government's efforts to reach a telephone connection to each of India's 600,000 villages, the total number of VPTs at the end of March 2002 amounted to 469,000. These figures clearly indicate of a digital divide driven by asset and income inequalities, such that there are a few at the top who are connected while the majority, preponderantly in rural areas, are marginalised from the communications network.
Even if connectivity in the form of a communications link is established, there is no guarantee that this can be viably expanded to connect India's villages to the world through the Internet, if that were considered an advantageous route to take. Despite its large population, the success of its IT industry and the government's stated intent of wiring India's villages, India today lags far behind many other developing countries in terms of the bandwidth (or the pipe) necessary for people to access information flow simultaneously through the Internet. In 2001, the International Telecommunications Union estimated bandwidth availability in India at 1,475 megabits per second (Mbits/sec), as compared with 2,639 in Singapore, 5,432 in South Korea, 6,308 in Hong Kong and 7,598 in China.
This, however, was not a problem because Internet users in India were estimated in that year at just 0.7 per 100 inhabitants, as compared to 2.6 in China, 36.3 in Singapore, 38.5 in Hong Kong and 52.1 in South Korea. Figures yielded by the National Readership Survey (NRS) 2002 indicated that there were only 6.6 million out of 680.6 million adults who had accessed the Internet in the preceding three months. The nature of even this limited user group comes through from the pattern of usage revealed by NRS 2002.
The NRS figures indicate that there is a high degree of geographical concentration even among urban Internet users. Close to one half of them (48.6 per cent) were located in the top 8 metros, with smaller towns accounting for the remaining. Interestingly, however, while towns with a population of more than 10 lakhs and 5-10 lakh respectively accounted for 13.1 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively, those with populations in the 1-5 lakh range and less than 1 lakh range were home to 18.8 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. That is, these are signs of some diffusion of Internet use among smaller Indian towns, providing a glimmer of hope to those who see in it an opportunity in the new technology.
Such signs of diffusion at the "lower-end" of the user spectrum are visible elsewhere as well. While 17.5 per cent of urban users accessed the Internet from their homes, 20.84 per cent had access from their place of work and another 12.7 per cent from their place of study. What is noteworthy was that a huge 40.56 per cent accessed the net through cyber-cafes. This lends credence to the view that the conversion of PCOs and STD/ISD booths that are indeed ubiquitous across India now, could help expand Internet use over time.
This picture of a combination of extreme concentration at the top and a more diffused access to the technology among users at the "lower-end" is supported by figures on the distribution of users in terms of hours of usage. Those who had used the Internet for 5 hours or more in a week accounted for 29.3 per cent of the total of Internet users, whereas those who used it for one hour or less accounted for as much as 40 per cent. That is, there were a large number of users who were using the Net to a limited extent, principally for e-mail and restricted surfing. It is likely that this large chunk of low-frequency users belonging to the "lower-end" of the user spectrum restricted its use to what were seen as absolutely necessary operations. That is, the Internet is not just concentrated among those who surf the Net not just for information and communication but also for entertainment. It shows signs of diffusion among those whose usage pattern suggests that their use is much more purposeful.
Thus, while the use of the new technology is indeed still extremely limited in India, and diffusion that can make a difference to the quality of life must wait, there are signs of change. Besides being concentrated among a set of top-end users, the technology does seem to be more well diffused among the set of lower-end, low-frequency users. This suggests that there are two routes through which the technology can impact on the quality of life. Elite users who use the technology to share information and analysis in crucial areas such as the environment, health, corporate practices and labour conditions can debate, develop and contribute to creating international best-practice standards in the relevant area, which provide the basis for national policy and for mobilisation of public opinion nationally and internationally. This would be the top-down, trickle-down means for the technology to influence human development. The other would be for the technology to be diffused leading to use by and participation of the disadvantaged in the formulation and implementation of policies that affect the quality of their lives. This is the more democratic face of the technology and the best manner in which it can be used to advance human development goals. Unfortunately, the current extent and pattern of diffusion of the technology in the country is such that it is the first of these which overwhelmingly predominates.
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