23 Cases of Successful ICT Projects

P. Jaisridhar

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1. INTRODUCTION

 

India is well-known around the world for its rapid economic growth rates over the last fifteen years or so, fuelled in part by the spectacular growth in its export-oriented software and ICT-based services sector. Many other countries look to India as a model for global outsourcing and try to imitate elements of this in their own strategies (Carmel 2003; Heeks and Nicholson 2004). Success at a particular period of time does not, of course, guarantee its continuation and commentators have expressed concerns such as rising wage rates and skills shortages of ICT professionals (CACM 2007), and increasing competition from countries such as China (Negroponte 2003). It is likely, however, that India will remain a major player in the ICT industry for years to come and thus its global image as an ICT success story will continue. Viewed from a broader development perspective, things are not so simple. The new wealth that has arisen in India from the ICT boom benefits the relatively wealthy and educated in the first instance (Kambhampati 2002). Will this trickle down to the poor and uneducated? Statistics paint a mixed picture of the current situation. On the one hand, India is now the world’s fourth largest economy in purchasing power parity terms, and has enjoyed high growth rates for over a decade rising to an average of over 8% per annum in the period 2004-7 (World Bank 2007).

 

On the other hand, India was ranked as 128thout of 177 countries on the human development index 2005 (UNDP 2005) which is a composite index based on life expectancy, literacy and education levels, and economic standard of living. Shocking statistics include the percentage of malnourished children under 5 being 46%, the adult female literacy rate as only 48%, and the percentage of the rural population using adequate sanitary services as 18% (World Bank 2007, UNICEF 2004).A major development issue, therefore, is whether India can seriously address the needs of all of its people, including the vast numbers of poor and uneducated in the rural areas and the urban slums. A related sub-question is whether, and to what extent, can ICTs be used to provide development benefits to all Indian citizens. There are increasing attempts to use technology in this way through projects such as e-government services and telecentres in poor areas.

 

2. ICT and Development Goals

 

Development goals of ICT are broadly categorized into four regions. Viz., Better lives for the poor, improved government services, enhanced internal economic activity and improved civil society.

 

The first broad development category is better lives for the poor. The Millennium Development Goals (United Nations 2009) focus strongly on this area with targets to end poverty and hunger, and significantly improve health and education for the poor. ICTs are seen to have high potential in a number of these areas, including that of health, where effective gathering and use of data through computerised health information systems is seen as a key prerequisite to improved health care delivery and the better assessment of health programmes (Braa et al 2004). Telecentres are a second area where ICTs have been widely applied with the aim of bridging the digital divide for the poor (Reilly and Gómez 2001), providing them with access to information and better freedom of choice. However, it is recognised that bridging the digital divide is not solely a matter of technology but also of the social, political, institutional and cultural contexts which shape people’s access and use of ICTs (Warschauer 2003). The usage of mobile phones is growing at a phenomenal rate in the developing countries as a whole (Heeks and Jagun 2007) and there is hope that this technology can offer flexible support to the improvisation capabilities of the poor in trying to improve their lives, providing better economic and social opportunities.

 

The second broad development category is improved government services. One ICT-based approach to this is through the provision of computerised back-end administrative services to citizens, although the effects may not be easily visible to them. In contrast, the term e-government has come to prominence throughout the world in the last decade, mostly to describe the highly visible direct services which government can deliver to citizens through the use of ICTs. There is an increasing amount of research devoted to this topic, although Heeks and Bailur (2007) argued that much of this work is over-optimistic in tone. A further type of ICT-based initiative aimed at improving government services is through the use of geographical information systems (GIS). Many issues that fall within the remit of government are inherently spatial in nature, such as the planning of roads and utility systems, and GIS offer a way of analysing alternative approaches which takes full account of geography and which utilises data from a variety of local sources and remote sensing technologies. The specific development goal is the better planning and implementation of infrastructure, providing improved economic and social opportunities.

 

A third desirable development outcome is enhanced internal economic activity. ICT-based initiatives here include internet banking and e-commerce aimed at providing better financial services to citizens and businesses. More generally, the adoption in private sector companies of a whole range of ICT-based approaches pioneered in Western countries from the operational to the strategic level is aimed at more efficient businesses across all sectors. However, one should be wary of assuming a simple relationship between technology adoption and improved performance as noted in the general literature on ICTs in developing countries. Agricultural supply chains are of particular interest to countries such as India, with a high proportion of its people living in rural areas and deriving their income from agriculture, and ICTs offer the potential to improve efficiencies in the supply chain, for example through the provision of up-to-date price information.

 

The final development category in the framework is improved civil society. One of the potential benefits of ICTs that has been discussed for many years is its ‘information’ capability (Zuboff 1988), whereby the technology does not merely improve the efficiency of processes but simultaneously produces enhanced data on these processes. Such data can be used for monitoring and control, but Zuboff argued that it could also be used for local empowerment of workers through increased understanding. In the context of developing countries, can information and ICTs be used in this way to empower poorer and less advantaged groups, thereby improving the functioning of civil society and the accountability of people such as government officials? Three areas will be discussed in this paper: firstly, computerised records in land reform aimed at increased efficiency and reduced corruption; secondly, empowering slum dwellers and other local communities through information and ICTs, aimed at improving the social and political participation of disadvantaged groups; finally, the provision of broader information on civil society more generally as a means of affecting negative attitudes such as apathy and indifference towards major social inequities.

 

3. Need for ICT in Agriculture

 

Farming community facing lot of problems in maximizing the crop productivity, in spite of successful research/technology on new agricultural practices the majority of famers not getting proper information due to several reasons. Precision farming, popular in developed countries, extensively uses IT to make direct contribution to agricultural productivity. The techniques of remote sensing using satellite technologies, geographical information systems, and agronomy and soil sciences are used to increase the agricultural output. The contribution of IT is bringing down costs, increasing efficiency and improving productivity. In the fertilizer marketing context, IT plays a major role in efficient sales operations, checking the marketing costs, safeguarding market share and providing efficient customer services. A well-conceived IT setup endows decision makers at all levels with better reflexes to effectively respond to market conditions.

 

4.  Applications / Advantage of ICT in Agriculture

 

1.The ICT tools provide networking of Agriculture Sector globally, the Centre and State Government Departments will have reservoir of databases” and also “bring farmers, researchers, scientists and administrators

2.Together”. Extension and advisory services using IT would be available to the farmers on round the clock basis.

3.ICT plays an important role in enhancing the impact and performance of agriculture production and in direct poverty alleviation by enhancing activities of poor and increasing their productivity by way of new credit and financial services, new opportunities to design, manufacture and market products through the Internet or intranet systems, etc

4.ICT as a development tool creating awareness among farmers and rural artisans for their betterment; geographical information system (GIS) is opening new approaches to regional planning and to management of natural resources

5.Development and strengthening of the farming community

6.It can initiate new agricultural and rural business such as e-commerce, real estate business for satellite offices, rural tourism, and virtual corporation of small-scale farms.

7.It can support policy-making and evaluation on optimal farm production, disaster management, agro-environmental resource management etc., using tools such as geographic information systems (GIS).

8.It can improve farm management and farming technologies by efficient farm management, risk management, effective information or knowledge transfer etc., realizing competitive and sustainable farming with safe products. For example, farmer has to make critical decisions such as what to plant? When to plant?, how to manage pests?, while considering off-farm factors such as environmental impacts, market access, and industry standards. IT-based decision support system (DSS) can surely help their decisions.

9.It can provide systems and tools to secure food traceability and reliability that has been an emerging issue concerning farm products since serious contamination such as chicken flu was detected.

10.It can facilitate rural activities and provide more comfortable and safe rural life with equivalent services to those in the urban areas, such as provision of distance education, telemedicine, remote public services, remote entertainment etc.

5. Successful ICT project for agricultural development in India

 

There have been some successfulICT project initiated in India for agricultural development. In most of these projects,agriculture is only a small component. Successful ICT projects in India are:

 

5.1. Gyandootproject (Madhya Pradesh): Gyandoot is an Intranet based Government to Citizen (G2C) service delivery portal commissioned in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh (a state in central India) in January 2000. Gyandoot aims to create a cost-effective, replicable, economically self-reliant and financially viable model for taking the benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the rural masses.

 

5.2. WaranaWired Village project (Maharashtra): The Warana Wired Village Project was launched as an attempt to modernize farmers’ co-operatives in Warana Nagar, Maharashtra, India. Existing co-operatives have been ICT-enabled to increase farmers’ capacities for information exchange in a government-driven experiment to discover the potential of rural ICT.

 

5.3. iKisanproject of the Nagarjuna group of companies (Andhra Pradesh):A Nagarjuna Group initiative, ikisan.com is a comprehensive Agri Portal addressing the Information, Knowledge and Business requirements of various players in the Agri arena viz., Farmers, Trade channel partners and AgriInput/output companies. Leveraging Information Technology and extensive field presence, Ikisan is positioned as an Information/Knowledge exchange and an e-Marketplace.

 

5.4. Krishiworld.net:Best portal on Agriculture in India. Provided various information about medicinal and aromatic plants, Biotechnology, crops, soils, fertilizers, weather, market watch, farm equipments, Plant protection-Disease etc. This will be very helpful for agriculture world.

 

5.5. E-Choupal.com:e-Choupal is an initiative of ITC Limited, a conglomerate in India, to link directly with rural farmers via the Internet for procurement of agricultural and aquaculture products like soybeans, wheat, coffee, and prawns. e-Choupal tackles the challenges posed by Indian agriculture, characterized by fragmented farms, weak infrastructure and the involvement of intermediaries. The programme installs computers with Internet access in rural areas of India to offer farmers up-to-date marketing and agricultural information.

 

5.6. India Development Gateway(InDG): InDGis a country-wide initiative that will target specific country needs in the domain of rural and social development. The Gateway is the Nationalportal of India developed as a single-window access to information and services, with specific objective of reaching the ‘un-reached’ rural communities of India, especially womenand poor. It catalyses the use of ICT tools for knowledge sharing, leading to development. InDG hopes to bridge the gap between the rural communities and development, by providinglinks to government, civil society groups / NGOs and private institutions. The ultimate goal is to create a service-oriented, people-friendly and demystified Information Technology (ICT) for Development in service of rural communities through country-wide collaborations.India Development Gateway is presently supported by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India and implemented by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Hyderabad

 

5.7. Project Akshaya: Akshaya is an e-literacy program initiated in Kerala for brining at least one member in a family as a e-literate. The operations of Akshaya as unfolded so far consist of three distinct phases. The first phase is that of enabling the masses by imparting basic skill in computer operations and making them familiar with internet. This phase is the period of eLiteracy training. In the initial phase, the Akshaya ecentre imparts basic training that not only familiarizes people with the basics and the scope of IT, but also ensures hands-on-skill in operating a computer, using the Internet etc to at least one person in the 64 lakh families in the state that makes it the largest rural eliteracy training project worldwide. Malappuram is declared as the first eliterate district in India. Malappuram and Kannur districts were already declared 100% eliterate. Kollam, Kozhikode, Thrissur and Kasaragod districts achieved eliteracy above 90%. So far around 33 lakhs beneficiaries were trained.

 

5.8. AGMARKNET is one such ICT initiatives implemented by the Directorate of Marketing and Inspection (DMI), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s welfare, Government of India for linking all important Agricultural Produce and Marketing Committee (APMCS), State Marketing Boards and DMI’s regional offices for effective exchange of market information and prices. AGMARKNET is a step towards globalizing Indian agriculture and empowering rural masses. Another initiative is e-Auction by the Tea Board of India. There are totally six e-auction centres viz., Kolkata, Siliguri, Guwahati, Cochin, Coimbatore and Coonoor that provides access to manufacturers, warehouses, auctioneers, buyers and sellers on various functionalities associated with the software. It is an end-to-end process which involves from creation of invoice copy till the tea is delivered to the warehouses.

 

5.9. Reuters Market Light (RML). RML provides mobile based agricultural information to the farming community. In across 13 states, RML has influenced the lives of over one million subscribers from around 50,000 villages across 13 states in the country. Information in RML are available for more than 300 crops and about 1300 markets.

 

5.10. Kisan Sanchar Limited is yet another ICT initiative by Indian Farmer Fertilizer Company (IFFCO) which helps farmers acquire information on weather, crop and animal husbandry related advice, rural health initiatives, fertilizers availability etc. Information are provided through text and voice messages. Five messages per day is provided to its members on the above said issues. In case if a farmer need to have a conversation with the officials of Kisan Sanchar Limited, they are facilitated with a call back option along with a helpline number.

 

5.11. e-SEVA: The e-seva project whose services include online payment of utility bills, issuing certificates, issuing licenses & permits, e-forms etc started in1999.It was designed to provide ‘Government to Citizen’ services. It delivers services online to consumers by connecting them to the respective government departments and providing online information at the point of service delivery. The project has become very popular among the citizens especially for payment of utility bills. Success of this project is largely based on payment of electricity bills. It exemplifies the potential for integration of delivery of Union, State and Local Government services at one point. However, it also shows that the model based on payment of utility bills could not be rolled out in the rural hinterland.

 

5.12. Digital India: Digital India is the latest initiative which is being coordinated and implemented by the Department of Electronics and IT, it is a program that aims at transforming the country through leveraging information and communication technologies in every sphere of economy and society. It is centred around providing digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. This was launched keeping in view that despite the successful implementation of many e-Governance projects across the country, e- Governance as a whole has not been able to make the desired impact and fulfil all its objectives.

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Web links

 

  1. Bhatnagar, Subhash and Robert Schware (2000), Information and Communication Technology in Development: Cases from India, New Delhi: Sage Publications.
  2. CACM (2007) News Track: India’s Challenge, Communications of the ACM, 50, 7, 8.
  3. Carmel, E. (2003) The New Software Exporting Nations: Success Factors, Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 13, 4, 1-12.
  4. E-Seva, an information brochure of Department of Information Technology and communications 2001.
  5. Heeks, R. and Bailur, S. (2007) Analyzing e-Government Research: Perspectives, Philosophies, Theories, Methods and Practice, Government Information Quarterly, 24, 2, 243-265.
  6. Heeks, R. and Jagun, A. (2007) Mobile Phones and Development, http://www.id21.org/insights/insights69/insights69.pdf .
  7. Heeks, R.  and  Nicholson,  B.  (2004)  Software  Export  Success  Factors  and Strategies in ‘Follower’ Nations, Competition & Change, 8, 3, 267-303.
  8. Kambhampati, U.S. (2002) The Software Industry and Development: The Case of India, Progress in Development Studies, 2, 1, 23-45.
  9. Negroponte, N. (2003) China versus India: Contrasting Strategies, What Consequences? Information Technologies and International Development, 1, 1, 85-88.
  10. UNDP (2005) http://hdrstats.undp.org .
  11. UNICEF (2004) http://www.unicef.org.
  12. United Nations (2009). http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/poverty.shtml
  13. Warschauer, M. (2003) Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the DigitalDivide. Boston: MIT Press.
  14. World Bank. (2007). India Country Overview. http://www.worldbank.org.in.
  15. Zuboff, S. (1988). In the Age of the Smart Machine. New York: Basic Books.