On the edge of the expanding wave of Internet connectivity, Punavali Kalan is located deep in the impoverished region of Bundelkhand. This tiny community of 3,800 inhabitants is an oasis where local information is exchanged, discussed, analysed and applied to community life. Though dial-up or subscriber lines do not yet reach the villagers, access to the Web is available through a VSAT at the local community knowledge center, the TARAkendra. These hybrid centers work to enhance social and economic development in rural communities while recovering costs as enterprises.
The buzzing TARAkendra at Punavali Kalan is run by a dynamic duo Rajmani and Priti Parmar. The Parmar sisters are concentrating on their business at an age when other girls are thinking about prospective grooms. One of TARAhaats early franchisees, they opened the Kendra adjacent to their home. Rajmani was familiar with computers and managed the centre from the start, at the same time encouraging Priti to enroll for TARAhaats computer courses.
Today, the Parmar sisters are intrinsically involved in the daily lives of the locals. When the village was faced with an acute water shortage and sanitation problems, Rajmani and Priti, with the confidence gained from running a successful enterprise helped solve the problem. Their door-to-door visits encouraged women to come forward and join hands to solve the problem.
TARAhaat provides courses on life and vocational skills and strengthens the community through outreach activities. Users of TARAhaat have found numerous ways to use computers and the Internet to learn, grow and improve their lives.
Kalpana Singh, a biology teacher at the school in Punavali, still remembers the chance meeting with the Parmar sisters at her school. Kalpana discovered the Internet at the TARAkendra and still spends many hours at the center upgrading her teaching skills. She also assists her husband, Rajendra Singh, by looking for relevant medical information on the Net. Recently when faced with a suspected case of ectopic pregnancy, Kalpana helped her husband by downloading information from the Internet. Today, both Kalpana and her husband are champions of the services provided at the TARAkendra.
The efforts of TARAhaat are not just changing the lives of individuals but that of an entire community. Children, who once played gulli-danda in the streets, now zip across computer screen with equal alacrity. Women, who hesitated to consult a male medical practitioner, now discuss their problems with doctors online. Raghuraj, an enterprising health worker chatted online with a Mumbai doctor for advice on a kidney stone problem. The lucky villager followed the advice and to his delight, averted surgery.
TARAhaat was launched in late 2000 in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. In 2001 TARAhaat expanded its operations to Punjab. Today TARAhaat has 37 centers and is in the midst of a major expansion. TARAhaat provides its information products through its web portal www.tarahaat.com. In addition, it supple-ments its online capabilities through a number of innovative offline services. Its current products are focused on education, communication (in 11 Indian languages and English), information and e-governance. TARAhaats educational programmes are much sought after primarily because they are in the local language and specifically designed to meet the needs of the rural students and the demands of the present day job market.
Priti, Rajmani, Kalpana, Shobha and Raghuraj are just some of the countless people in whose lives ICT has made a difference. These successes encourage initiatives like TARAhaat to strive further towards becoming an interface between the common people and their dreams. Like Punavali Kalan, TARAhaat has impacted many villages not only in Bundelkhand but also in the states of Punjab and Haryana.
Courtesy: TARAHaat Information and Marketing Services Ltd., and ICT Initiative of Development Alternatives, an Indian NGO.
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