India is moving ahead in meeting its target of putting knowledge centers (KC) in every village by the year 2007 on a mission mode, as part of the Mission 2007, Every Village a Knowledge Centre initiative. The Steering Committee meeting of the National Alliance on Mission 2007, held in New Delhi, on February 1, noted positive developments and a receptive environment from the government and private quarters.
Prof. M S Swaminathan, Chairperson of the National Alliance, inaugurated the meeting. National Alliance is an informal forum of more than 100 multistakeholder organisations representing the government, private corporations and civil society. The meeting took stock of the progress made towards establishing knowledge centres in Indian villages by 2007 and discussed on the future course of action on the proposed goal.
The steering committee was happy to note that telecom regulator (TRAI) has announced broadband policy; the government was committed to setting up 100,000 knowledge centres and other progress made on the goal.
Union minister of state for planning, M V Rajasekharan put focus on connecting rural areas of the country as 70 % people are living in rural areas. Internet access and timely access to services is the key to the success of the project, said the Minister. He also felt the requirement for concessional funds from banks to establish knowledge centres by the local youths.
Sukanya Rath, Secretary General of the Alliance, proposed the networking of the villages on the east cost of the Indian peninsula. This is also essential for the disaster preparedness strategy, she added.
Senthil Kumaran of MSSRF presented his direct experience from tsunami-hit areas in Tamil Nadu. He demonstrated, how technology could help save the lives and livelihoods of people in the costal areas. He also emphasized the relevance of using HAM radio as an effective tool in emergency communication.
Mahesh Uppal, Director, Telecommunications and Computer Information Systems, proposed a plan to support establishment of the 100,000 knowledge centres. He pointed out that the government has committed INR100 crore annually for three years. These funds could be channelised by NABARD and the scheme could cover the capital expenses of the establishment. NABARD could support 10,000 centres in first year, he pointed out.
Ashok Jhunjhunwala of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras presented the choice of technology available. He recommended, that rural/niche service providers be allowed to build 2 Mbps rural backbone. Towards this, he further suggested that TRAI / DOT should reduce fiber leasing charges for such network by a factor of four. Also spectrum towers could be built in each taluk and be shared by such service providers on nominal lease. Spectrum charges for all technologies should be free or reduced to a maximum of two percent of the total revenue, he recommended.
IT & C Secretary of the Andhra Prudish state presented the state governments plan to connect 25000 villages via optical cable at the cost of INR 395 crore. Which is much lesser than INR 1250 crore asked by the BSNL to lease its already present optical cables.
Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach of OneWorld South Asia proposed a pressure group to initiate a dialogue with the BSNL so that they should ask the progressive rates for leasing out their cables, rather than asking the historical rates, considering that the cost of laying optical cables have come down drastically in last couple of years.
Dr Ashok Khosla of Development Alternative, warned against the kiosk proliferation rate of 400% per annum. He proposed that we should be targeting for the 2008 to achieve the goals. He also proposed that the management of the kiosks should be coordinated by a social enterprise and there should be little public inputs except for that of connectivity.
Dr. R Chidambaram said that services have to be demand driven, and we need coherent synergy among the actors. We also need to use infrastructure developed by the private entities.
TRAI informed the meeting about the regulators effort in this direction. Tariffs have gone down and service providers are still making profit because of the increased number of users. Rural area is a huge opportunity. TRAI would further reduce the tariff of international bandwidth, domestic and lease lines, said Mr. Pradip Baijal, Chairman of the telecom regulator.
N.Vijayaditya of National Informatics Centre (NIC) emphasized the need for addressing the need of the local communities. Proper marketing and financial systems need to be developed, so that ICT supports livelihoods of the local population. Only then can the proposed kiosks be sustainable, he said in the meeting.
Ravi Kant, IT secretary, West Bengal, drew attention to the higher rural population density of West Bengal that makes it viable for the kiosks operation on enterprising basis.
While summarising the proceeding of the meeting, Prof. Swaminathan elaborated the concept of a knowledge center vis-à-vis an information centre. The location of the KC should be in a public space because access could be a problem for certain communities in private space, he emphasized.
On debates of numbers, he said that having 600,000 KC was not the idea. The intention was to use the spoke and hub approach to establish such knowledge centres in hubs that could cover several villages and help us attain the target of taking the benefits of ICTs to all villages. The idea is to integrate 600,000 villages, which could be achieved, by integrating radio and Internet. He was also concerned about the non-utilization of the BSNL optical cables.
Namrata Bali of SEWA proposed to involve membership based organisation to map the resources in the community.
Sarosh Batliwala from the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust expressed the willingness to support the Mission 2007 Secretariat financially.
K S Sharma of Prasar Bharati informed that they have started Direct To Home (DTH) television and radio service and is reaching out to every village in India. The system has the potential to become interactive, but the government mandate is to not become interactive for the moment. He also asked for the support from the forum on this issue. He also offered a radio transmitter to be used by non-profits to air social messages free of cost.
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