BY ASHWIN ASTHANA X-A 04

Rural Development forms an important agenda of the Government. However, the application of ICT in the Rural Development sector has been relatively slow. The main reasons for this are poor ICT infrastructure in rural areas, poor ICT awareness among agency officials working in rural areas and local language issues.

 Agriculture is an important sector with more than 70% of the Indian population living in rural areas and earns its live hood by agriculture and allied means of income. The sector faces major challenges of enhancing production in a situation of dwindling natural resources necessary for production. The growing demand for agricultural products, however, also offers opportunities for producers to sustain and improve their livelihoods. Information and communication technologies (ICT) play an important role in addressing these challenges and uplifting the livelihoods of the rural poor. 

ICT offers an opportunity to introduce new activities, new services and applications into rural areas or to enhance existing services. ICTs can play a significant role in combating rural and urban poverty and fostering sustainable development through creating information rich societies and supporting livelihoods. If ICTs are appropriately deployed and realize the differential needs of urban and rural people, they can become powerful tools of economic, social and political empowerment. 

The role of ICTs under climate change situation can be explored based on the linkages that exist between ICTs as a system component and its ability to withstand & its ability to recover and to change under changing climatic conditions. 

In rural communities of developing countries, with limited capacities and resources to respond to the effects of extreme natural hazards, drought, landslides, floods, and to the impacts of these events on local social systems (e.g. health, infrastructure, transportation, migration), ICT tools (the potential of telecentres for disaster preparedness and response) are emerging as an area of increasing interest.

SCOPE OF ICT IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Recent developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have introduced a 

plethora of opportunities for development in every conceivable area. ICT as an enabler has 

broken all bounds of cost, distance and time. The fusion of computing and communications, 

especially through the internet has reduced the world indeed into global village creating new 

actors and new environments.

One of the major components and driving force of rural development is communication. 

Conventionally, communication includes electronic media, human communication & now 

information technology (IT). All forms of communications have dominated the development 

scene in which its persuasive role has been most dominant within the democratic political frame 

work of the country. Persuasive communication for rural development has been given highest 

priority for bringing about desirable social and behavioral change among the most vulnerable 

rural poor and women. Initially, the approach lacked gender sensitivity and empathy of the 

communicators and development agents who came from urban elite homes. Added to these 

constraints is political will that still influences the pace and progress of rural development. 

Technological changes further compounded the direction of rural development as information 

and communication technology (ICT) has been thought by communication and development 

workers as a panacea for other ills that obstructs the development process. It has lead to 

indiscriminate applications and use of ICT in every aspect of information dissemination, 

management & governance of development. While there are few shining examples of 

achievements of ICT in development, there are a large number of failures and unauthenticated 

claims.

The closing decade of twentieth century was the opening of historic information and 

communication technology interventions for development. This period has witnessed enormous 

and unprecedented changes in every aspect of communications technologies policies, 

infrastructure development and services. The ICT boom in India has already started changing the 

lives of Indian masses. The role of ICT in Rural Development must be viewed in this changing scenarios.

Thank you

Ashwin Asthana