October - 2003 issue > In Focus

By si Team

Among the villages in the former French colony of Pondicherry that are hotspots in the Information Village Project (IVP) started by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) is Embalam.

The village has a population of 7,000, with 600 of every 1,000 families living below the poverty line. In a small room, four computers share space with back-up batteries and rudimentary furniture. A group of 15 women—some of them from the caste of Dalits—operate the computers, collate and present data. They speak no English and have not studied beyond high school.

But they man one of the 12 spokes—called Knowledge Centres—of an information and communication technology (ICT) enabled rural upliftment programme. Says 37 year-old Usha Rani, who wraps up housework before reporting for voluntary work at the centre, “The Knowledge Centre has become a place everybody flocks to. Villagers now access information on all kinds of situations and problems—weather, crops, livestock, health, everything. We have even mediated disputes.” The IVP’s 12 Knowledge Centres cover 40 villages. Each centre is inter-linked via wired and wireless communications devices.

According to a survey in five villages covered by the project, people benefit from securing information on employment, crops, fish markets, loans, dairy farming, real estate, veterinary services, weather and wave-height information, bus service and power outage schedules, exam results, and public address announcements. One example of a valuable application has been the availability of the list of people below the poverty line secured and uploaded by the nodal team at Villianur.

The Embalam women report the varying prices of grain in government and private markets. Farmers now get the best possible price. Every household in Embalam now has an insurance policy—a national life insurance scheme subsidized by the central government of which the villagers had no knowledge before.

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