[Forward from the Bytes for All List. John]
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COURTESY: India Abroad News Service http://www.indiaabroad.com
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Karnataka strives to take IT to the masses
by Imran Qureshi, India Abroad News Service

Bangalore, Dec 3 - India may just be waking up to a glaring digital =
divide
but Karnataka, the state at the forefront of India's information =
technology
(IT) surge, has taken several initiatives to bridge the gap between the
=
IT
haves and have-nots.

So much so that the state's efforts have been appreciated by world =
leaders
who visited the state during the past 12 months.=20

The latest to praise the state was World Bank president James =
Wolfensohn,
who even made an offer on behalf of his organization for a joint effort
=
to
use IT to bridge the digital gap and fight poverty.

In many ways, India, and Karnataka in particular, has become a case =
study
for global applications in the area of bridging the digital divide. The
state has contributed much towards the country becoming a powerhouse in
=
the
IT arena but it is still fighting issues such as poverty, illiteracy and
unemployment.=20

N.R. Narayana Murthy, chairman of the Bangalore-based Infosys =
Technologies,
put it rather succinctly when he said at a recent IT conference in the =
city,
"We cannot wait until all the needs of the people are met. IT has to be
leveraged to alleviate poverty."=20

Murthy has been using every opportunity to drive home this point. During
Wolfensohn's visit to the Infosys facility earlier this month, Murthy =
lined
up an impressive set of people. One of them was Salil Taneja, an
aeronautical engineer and founder of Taneja Aerospace, which builds =
small
aircraft.

The reason behind the invitation to Taneja was his recently launched =
portal,
farmersbazar.com, which seeks to gather "information collated from =
premier
agricultural institutions and research stations" to educate farmers =
about
scientific applications.=20

In the short term, Taneja has successfully completed another interesting
aspect of his project. The Web site provides a fair price to apple =
growers
of Himachal Pradesh by cutting out middlemen and providing a transparent
system for transporting their produce to 15 cities, right down to =
Bangalore
and Kochi. Farmersbazar.com plans to extend these services to cover =
other
farm products as well.

"The potential benefits to the rural masses from the digital revolution
=
are
even greater than benefits to the urban rich," Taneja told IANS.=20

His words ring true in the case of the Bellandur village administration,
=
a
local self-government unit situated 20 km from Bangalore, which has
computerized its operations. People living in the area can now get any
official document in less than half an hour.

"I used to spend three days running from pillar to post, bribing =
officials
to get a birth certificate for my child. Today, I can finish the entire
thing in less than half an hour and go to the school for admission," =
said
Honnappa, a resident of Bellandur.

"People save a tremendous amount of time because we are able to deliver
=
in
time," Jagannath, village administration president and the brain behind
computerization, told IANS. "Very soon, we will provide details of =
cropping
patterns, weather, pesticides, pests and other basic information for the
benefit of the farming community," he added.

The state government is set to launch its e-governance program in the
revenue department, which will simplify the registration of property.

In an attempt to bridge the digital gap, Karnataka has also launched
yuva.com, a scheme already underway in collaboration with IT education
giants like NIIT, Aptech and SSI. Under the scheme, the government
subsidizes computer education provided by the private sector for rural
youth.=20

"The idea is to ensure that rural youth become computer literate. Over a
period of time, you will see the growth of IT-enabled services industry
=
in
Karnataka. This is one way of filling the digital divide," said Vivek
Kulkarni, Karnataka's IT secretary.

There are plans for schoolchildren as well, particularly those in
government-run schools. NIIT, Aptech and Compu Education are setting up
computer laboratories in 1,000 government schools all over the state to
ensure that every student gets a minimum of three-hours-a-week computer
education.

As evidence of the kind of interest rural children have in IT, Kulkarni
boasts of the high response received for a rural IT quiz program =
organized
as part of the recently concluded BangaloreIT.com2000 where almost =
34,000
children took part.=20

Yet, several bottlenecks remain even in a state like Karnataka, whose
capital city is considered the nation's IT capital. "The government =
needs to
build the infrastructure for IT to reach the rural masses. Returns on =
some
of these investments are too long-term for the private sector to have an
appetite for them now," Taneja said.

While he believes that the true potential of IT will be realized over =
the
next decade, he still has a fear. "The real danger is if a section of =
the
population has no access to IT and its productivity-enhancing potential
=
then
that section will fall behind those who has such access," he said.

-- India Abroad News Service

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