Changing rural lives

The Chennai-based M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation's Information Village Research Project wins the Stockholm Challenge award.

SINCE 1999 the city of Stockholm, in cooperation with the European Union, has recognised outstanding global efforts in reaching the benefits of information and communications technology to society at large, with the Stockholm Challenge Award. The award is given under seven categories. The Chennai-based M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation's Information Village Research Project has been chosen for the award for 2001 under the Global Village category.

In a vast country like India, with a huge population and stark inequalities, technological advances more often than not bypass the poor and the rural masses. Bringing to these sections the benefits of technology calls for much effort. The Information Village Project, set up in 1998 in Pondicherry, is part of the MSSRF's programme of 'Reaching the Unreached' through emerging and frontier technology. Ten villages benefit from this project - four in the first phase, which ended in 2000, and six in the second phase, which began in February 2001.

The Award Committee observed: "It is a wonderful example of taking the benefits of information technology to the rural poor which demonstrates the power of information and opportunity... It empowers everyone with knowledge and opportunity by an inclusive use of local language and a multi-media format that allows all to participate."

The project is a demonstration of how breaking the information barrier can change rural lives. In the two-and-three-street villages of Villianur, Veerampatti-nam, Embalam and Kizhur around Pondicherry, nearly 65 per cent of whose families live below the poverty line and nearly 80 per cent of whose populations are unlettered, such information as on farming practices, weather and commodity prices have benefited the people immensely.

The project, started with a $120,000-grant from the International Development Research Centre, Canada, provides the villages technology and locally relevant information in exchange for just a place to house the computers.

All kinds of information is distributed through the computer kiosk in the local language,Tamil.

AT Villianur, 10-year-old Raja and Sujith can barely read but are keying in a Tamil lesson in the computer. It is only the 15th day of their computer training (it is imparted free of cost for schoolchildren) and they are able to handle the mouse and snap through the operating routine. This is a dream come true for the children, whose fathers eke out a living as masons.

Just across the road, Rudramma, 45, is readying to come to the kiosk, which helped her find a place to buy seeds for her two-acre paddyfield. In two months, when it is time to harvest, she would check up the market price posted daily. She would then compare it with the price the local traders would offer and decide whether to sell the produce to him or take it to the nearest market.

For four days Panchavarnam's pregnant cow had been in pain but could not give birth to a calf. For Panchavarnam the cow's survival was crucial as it was her only source of income since her husband's death. News of the cow's plight spread, and G. Ezhilarasi, a college student who operates the computer from an ante-room in her house, surfed the Internet for veterinarians and contacted several of them in the area. On the fourth day, one doctor responded to the message. He came to the village and assisted in the delivery.

Weather information is crucial for the farming and fishing communities. The project staff download a map from a United States Navy website that gives such details as wave heights and wind directions in the Bay of Bengal. This is translated into Tamil, transmitted to the villages and announced through the 10 public address systems daily. In the fishing village of Veerampattinam, which this correspondent visited, loud-speakers fixed to tall poles along the beach announced periodically the weather report for the day.

Sharada, 45, of Kizhur village has just discovered - thanks to the government schemes listed at the computer kiosk - that she can benefit from the self-employment scheme. She plans to open a tea shop with the small amount she will get from the scheme. Tanikachalam, a weaver, sold a silk sari through the Internet for $1,000, a price he would not have got had he sold it in the local market.

Access to the Internet has also created a good second-hand goods market. Cows, electric gadgets and even vessels are sold through the Internet for good prices. The villages are linked to the MSSRF's system hub in Villianur through an ingenious wireless system. The technology, devised by Dr. V. Balaji (then with the MSSRF), is based on a two-way VHF radio and the public land telephone network. This approach provides an integrated voice and data communication capability. Voice is added to reach out to the unlettered.

Village volunteers - with a minimum educational qualification of a pass in Standard VIII - who manage the kiosks are given computer training for three months. The average time taken to learn HTML is one week; Word, two days, wireless system, three days; Power point, one week and working in Tamil on English keyboard, 10 weeks.

The villages have to follow some basic rules. For instance, if the kiosk does not allow Dalits to use the facility, the centre is wound up. The MSSRF closed two centres for this reason. The Pondicherry government which proposes to extend the project to other villages, bore the initial cost of setting up the project in five colleges. The MSSRF's Information Village, project is an excellent illustration of how rural lives can change with information flows.