India's Telecom Reform - Indian Institute of Public Administration

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India’s Telecom Reform: A Chronological Account a. Basic Literacy and e-literacy: Basic education and knowledge of information technology among the rural population are keys to exploiting the benefits of ICT. b. Role of NGOs: Given the present status of the rural population in India, NGOs have a key role in educating and organising rural communities. They can also contribute to the development and deployment of locally relevant contents/services and making use of these services. c. Rural Access Roads: The information on market conditions need to be supported by rural access roads, which in turn help make use of the information accessed through communications. d. Availability of Energy: Energy, either conventional or non-conventional, needs to be available in the villages in order to provide reliable and uninterrupted communication facilities in the villages. e. Micro-credit schemes: Properly structured micro-credit schemes are required in order to help the population take up income generation activities with the help of knowledge acquired through ICT. f. Legal, Institutional and Regulatory Framework: Lack of this framework could result in the lack of consumer confidence that will undermine the usage of these facilities. g. Content, applications: Information on livelihood or direct earnings makes people flock to ICT facilities. Therefore, applications of ICT that lead to income generation are a must for inducing people to use ICT facilities. h. Process re-engineering: Various departments of the government need to undergo a considerable process reengineering exercise to improve their own information processing methods and quality of services to introduce e-governance and citizen-centric services. It can be observed that there is some overlap in the critical success factors and complementary factors. Regardless of classification, both sets of factors have a bearing on the use of ICT facilities for poverty alleviation. It would also be observed that basic telephony could contribute to the provision of some of the complementary factors like literacy (by making village postings more attractive to qualified teachers) and access roads (by facilitating better implementation and maintenance). Finally, the shift of population away from agriculture is an index of economic growth and poverty reduction. This shift has been very slow in India and the share of population dependent on agriculture was estimated at 52 percent in 2003. A significant contribution that communications can make towards the object of growth with poverty alleviation is in facilitating a speedier shift of agricultural population to productive employment in small and medium towns. Recent Initiatives in the Field There are both private and public initiatives to use ICTs for socio-economic purposes. Among the private initiatives, Indian Tobacco Company’s (ITC) ‘e-choupal’ project has attracted wide notice. The main objective of this project was to create a single point of contact for the farmers and suppliers of both agricultural inputs and consumer products initially and eventually to turn them into e-commerce hubs in rural areas. In accordance with these objectives, ‘echoupals’ were designed to work as a combination of an Internet kiosk, village gathering place and e-commerce hub. ‘e-choupals’ are now functional in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Further expansion is also taking place. Also notable among non-government initiatives is the ‘n- Logue’ scheme promoted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Internet centres set up under this project in some southern states cater to village needs in areas of medicine, education, animal husbandry and bank credit. Among the public initiatives, the Gyandoot project was commissioned in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh in January 2000 by the district administration. Providing agriculture market information and interfacing the district administration with ordinary people are the main objectives of this project. The services offered by the village outlets 28
Information Communication Technology and Powerty Alleviation (‘Soochanalyas’) are applications for pensions, government schemes and grievances of citizens. The content was prepared in the local language. The experiment was not completely successful; bureaucratic problems eroded the project’s impact in respect of the goals it set out to achieve. However, similar experiments have been initiated in several other states on a pilot basis. The schemes in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Kerala are well reported. Another notable experiment done by the central government is the Community Information Centre (CIC) Project that was started in January 2000 as a measure to speed up economic development in the north-east region. The main objective of the project was to help the north-eastern states to join the national socio-economic mainstream by providing internet connectivity and making the delivery of citizen services efficient. In addition to Government to Citizen services, CICs provide Internet access and e-mail, printing, data entry and word processing and training facilities for the local population. An enlarged scheme that would extend to the whole country has also been announced. These facilities are bringing the remote and backward areas of the country closer to the national mainstream through efficient and faster information flow. The issue of the sustainability of these models in the long run has also been experimentally tested. 29
Page 2 and 3: India’s s Telecom Reform: m: A Ch
Page 4 and 5: Table of Contents 1 2 3 4 5 Introdu
Page 7 and 8: India’s s Telecom Reform: m: A Ch
Page 9 and 10: Introduction The policy document se
Page 11 and 12: Introduction In 1998, there was bit
Page 13 and 14: 2 Key Regulatory y Issues Convergen
Page 15 and 16: Key Regulatory Issues who had much
Page 17 and 18: Key Regulatory Issues access teleph
Page 19 and 20: Key Regulatory Issues sultation pap
Page 21 and 22: A Theoretical Model of Subcontracti
Page 23 and 24: Epilogue (a) filling the gap betwee
Page 25 and 26: Appendix I Chronology of Indian Tel
Page 27 and 28: Chronology of Indian Telecom Reform
Page 33: Information Communication Technolog
Page 37 and 38: Select Telecom Statistics Select Te
Page 39 and 40: Select Telecom Statistics Table 2.
Page 41 and 42: References Asian Development Bank (

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