Archives

by Chanuka Wattegama

Chandrababu Naidu, the IT savvy Chief Minister of Andra Pradesh is not an unfamiliar personality to many Sri Lankans. Laloo Prasad Yadav, a former counterpart of his, from the adjacent state of Bihar is not such a prominent politician outside India. Interestingly, the two are extreme opposites.

While Naidu is more interested in carrying his laptop and wants Bill Gates to invest in the IT industry of Hyderabad - or Cyberabad as it is called these days - Yadav, the 'son of the soil' who have not given up his habits of early 'farmer days' still enjoys riding a push bicycle and takes pride in the fact he still brushes teeth with a stick; not a toothbrush. Not surprisingly, he is not a person who advocates the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), that too particularly in the government sector.

"What can computers do the poor...?" He asks pointing out the efforts of Naidu to make Andra Pradesh a high tech state;"... Can all those computers give milk to the poor farmers in Bihar?".

Laloo Prasad Yadav cannot be the only person who has this doubt. We have heard many versions of the same question from different parties varying from mediocre politicians to social workers and even from general public. A recent letter to the editor of a computer magazine reads as follows.

"Let ICT remain the staple for academics and professionals. What will it mean for people in the thousands of miserable villages in this misguided nation? Please, please come out of your ivory tower and see the plight of the villages, sans water, sanitation and decent living. Photographs of farmers posing with PCs and fishermen analyzing computer printouts may befit a TV ad, but what are you trying to sell?"

So is there a point at all in automation when a larger section of the population lacks the most fundamental needs? What computers can do to feed the hungry villagers? Can they provide milk for infants, harvest for farmers and fishermen and medicine for the sick? What benefits the functional illiterates can gain from computers? Shouldn't we concentrate more on the basic needs before trying to bridge the so-called digital divide? Put in a nutshell, can ICTs make a real impact in eliminating extreme poverty?

On the face of it, these questions appear extremely valid and appropriate. One does not need to be an economist to know the pressing economic issues all South Asian nations, including Sri Lanka, face at this moment.

The local poverty levels, as expressed in the Annual report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, for the year 2002, might be impressive in the South Asian context, but in a border scale we still have a long way to go in achieving economic prosperity.

Fortunately, Sri Lanka is much better than its neighbours when it comes to extreme poverty as only 6% of the Sri Lankan population lives on less than one US dollar per day. On the other hand, the figures for India and Nepal are around 30% while in Pakistan and Bangladesh it's much worse. Still, in the layer above that 45% of the Sri Lankan population still lives below on two US dollars per day. What can the computers do to put more in the mouths of these hungry millions?

The entire point here is that all these keep asking the wrong question. It is obvious where they have gone wrong. To many in our society still ICT is a luxury. For them, ICT is an unnecessary cost. They do not see it as a necessary tool that can be used to make their work more productive and earn more money.

This perception of ICT, as a need of the haves would have been partially correct one or two decades ago when ICTs were used only in top business organisations (and not even in some of the government offices). Those were the days computers were kept in air-conditioned rooms within entry-restricted areas.

Are we still living in those times? Are ICTs still luxuries consumed by only a rich few in the society? Consider this example. A certain cyber cafe in Colombo reserves few terminals only to take IDD telephone calls. These PCs are equipped with microphones and speakers and connected to Internet, so that the users can take international telephone calls using Voice over IP technology. Whenever I visit this place I see at least two or three users using these terminals for a long time. They are obviously not rich.

Probably many of them even do not know how to operate a PC. Still these poor people use ICTs as a low cost means to keep in touch with their relatives in the Middle East. Even with lower IDD call rates they cannot afford to take international calls for long durations. So they settle for this low quality, but highly economical solution. To them, PCs are not a luxury. They are mere tools, which have become essential for them.

The case of the cellular phone is another good example. When they were introduced to this region somewhere in early nineties, a mobile phone cost nearly SL Rs. 90,000 and if I am not mistaken, each minute of talk was for a cost of more than Rs. 10. At these rates it was nothing but luxury, only a selected few in the society could use. However today it is an entirely different story. Nearly one million of mobile phones are used in Sri Lanka now, and most of those who own them are no way can be termed as rich. This group includes even the three-wheeler drivers and the ordinary vegetable sellers. Both these categories do not see mobile phones as an extravagance. It is an essential tool they use in their day-to-day work.

In a way, this is a deja vu. This situation is not very different from late nineteenth century when the mere modes of transport were considered a luxury.

During that time only the rich could travel in comfort by using either horse driven vehicles or handful of automobiles. It was Henry Ford who brought down the production cost of the automobiles by mass production and made them accessible even to the ordinary fork.

The difference that made was enormous. In late nineties, travelling in a palanquin was a super luxury enjoyed by the royals and affluent classes. Nearly one hundred years later even the poorest of the poor do not consider travelling in a motor vehicle as a luxury. It is merely a necessity in their lives. Similarly, the days even the lowest sections of community getting the full benefits of ICTs cannot be that long. Most probably, by that time the lowest sections will be in a much better position both socially and economically.

Another reason why still may think ICT as a luxury is that there are so few computer applications that bring true benefits to the poor.

Fortunately, the situation is rapidly changing even in the South Asian region. We Sri Lankans might be a little late to catch, but there are many regional level examples and most of them, not surprisingly, come from India.

It is appropriate to look into some of these projects in detail as there are many lessons we can learn from them in using ICT correctly not only to gap the economic divides but also to address the social issues in the rural communities as well.

One typical example of using ICT directly for human development is offered by the 'Information Village' experiment being conducted by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in ten villages in Pondicherry, India. This project intends to electronically deliver productive knowledge that can improve earnings. It uses a hybrid wired and wireless network that permits voice and data transfer - based on a combination of PCs, VHF radio devices, telephone lines and dial-up connectivity to disseminate locally appropriate information in the vernacular. Knowledge from external sources is selectively compiled and reformulated so that it can be integrated with local knowledge. Electronic Knowledge Centres are located in temples, local government (panchayat) offices, government buildings and even private premises.

Information provided in the village knowledge centres is locale specific and relates to prices of agricultural inputs (such as seeds, fertilisers, pesticides) and outputs (rice, vegetables), market (potential for export), entitlement (the multitude of schemes of the central and state governments, banks), health care (availability of doctors and paramedics in nearby hospitals, women's diseases), cattle diseases, transport (road conditions, cancellation of bus trips) and weather (appropriate time for sowing, areas of abundant fish catch, wave heights in the sea). A unique feature is that the centres are operated by local volunteers and that most information is collected and fed in by the local community itself. According to reports, the impact of the project is quite visible.

For instance, one community, which came under the scope of this project, was Embalam, a two-street village 22 km west of Pondicherry, where 130 out of 210 families struggled below the poverty line. The village elders have allowed the M.S. Swaminathan Foundation access to one side of the temple to house two solar-powered computers that are used to give villages a wealth of data, varying from the price of rice to weather conditions for fishermen and medical information for the sick.

Through this project farmers have gained a better grip on their local markets, as prices are more transparent. They get the right seeds when they want them; they have catalogued over 350 different types of herbs that can grow in their area. Fishermen get information from satellite images on where the fish shoals are likely off the Pondicherry coast, and (from the US Navy Website!) on wave heights and wind directions in the Bay of Bengal.

Livelihood Advancement Business School (LABS) operated by Dr. Reddy's Foundation, Hyderabad, India is another prominent venture that has used ICT to entirely change the lives of poor. It is a not profit oriented business school which now trains 6,000 students in mainly in the areas of Information and Communication Technologies, Finance, Business and Marketing and Science and Technology at five different centres in Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kochi. Dr. Nalini Gangadhar, whom I have met few months back in New Delhi, is fond of pointing out some of the outstanding success stories - the life stories of the people whose lives they have changed. Madhavi was a Class 7 dropout and was forced to earn Indian Rs. 400 (US$ 8) a month provided she worked for 12 hours a day.

Today, she is working in a leading Business Process Out sourcing firm earning a few thousands and dreams of heading a software company some day. Prabhakar was working in the local market yard a few years ago, but today, he is employed in a software company. An auto rickshaw driver's daughter, Rekha, who too had to stop her education abruptly, is today associated with a call centre and also doing her graduation.

Even in Bangladesh, a country that has shown one of the highest Internet proliferation rates in the world in recent time, there are many projects that use ICT directly to the benefit of the poor. The legendary Grameen Bank project, the brainchild of Proof. Mohamed Yunus, takes the maximum use of ICT. Instead of computerising each branch, which is not possible not only due to high cost but also difficulties in obtaining electricity in some areas, Grameen Bank has set up 'Information Management Centres' at an intermediately point to serve more than one branch.

On an average basis, three branches are serviced by one computer at one Information management Centre. Each centre provides all types of loan monitoring and accounting services on a regular basis. Therefore, it has been possible to both reduce costs and the increase efficiency of the computerisation programme. In this project, the use of ICT is not for luxury purposes. They were used to efficiently facilitate the day-to-day financial needs of the community.

By taking these examples from neighbouring countries, I do not want to underestimate our own achievements. However, in spite of the initiations taken by many civil society organisations, most significantly by Sarvodaya, as far as Sri Lanka is concerned use of ICT for the alleviation of poverty still remains an area that had been only partially explored. Another salient factor in Sri Lanka is the lack of significant government involvement in the area. The much publicised rural Internet kiosk and e-Governance programmes are yet to show any real outcome.

Then again coming to the same question, one can always ask what priority should be given to investing in ICTs when there are so many other pressing problems remain to be addressed. In other words, how practical is it to attempt bridging the so called 'digital divide' without bridging the 'analogue divide' - the economical differences that exist between the rich and poor and the urban and rural communities?

Most certainly this question has already been answered by Gauthama Buddha himself more than two thousand and five hundred years ago. "Sabbe Sattha Aratatthika' were his exact words.

Nobody can stand against physical hunger and only when one is free from hunger one can think about Dhamma.

Therefore, it will never be practical to introduce ICT to those who yearn for bread.

Still, as we all know men do not live by bread alone. The moment they are free from hunger and the rest of the physical needs they look up to fulfil their other needs Maslow correctly identified in his pyramid of human requirements.

That exact points is the moment ICTs can make the turning point in one's life.

www.ceylincoproperties.com

www.ppilk.com

www.crescat.com

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries

Produced by Lake House
Copyright © 2003 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager