Bringing the Net Effect to 700 million Rural Indians

Bringing the Net Effectto 700 million Rural Indians

Let us Integrate rural India into mainstream economy

Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IITM, [email protected]

Rural Magic !!

The next few slides are true stories which have “magically” impacted the lives of

people in villages

Palaniammal’s eyes…

A 60 year old from a village near Melur

Photographs by an ordinary web camera:Remote feedback given by Aravind Eye hospital

URDIP, Pune, Oct03 4

Agricultural Consultancy

An Okra crop saved Top: Diseased with

yellow mosaic Below : Post treatment

Saving of Rs 140,000 for the farmers

Cost of information Rs 20

Built huge trust in the system

The Vet is on the Net ...

•This goat had a wound near its mouth and could not eat for a week

• The advice from the doctor cured its problem in 2 days


Remote Cardiac care


Net Meeting : The Power of Visual Communication

The Power of Visual Communication

A Doctor in Madurai talking to patients in Ulaganathapuram


Emergencies are no longer Calamities …

In the village of T Ulgapitchanpatti, all hens are dying one by one. The symptoms for these hens are: First, their weight reduces and finally, their necks shrink. At this stage they die immediately. Until now, 300 hens have died in this way. How do we stop this? Please give us a solution immediately. From A. Sakkarai"


… because Help is at Hand

A visit from the Government Veterinary Officials to vaccinate all hens


Epidemics can be prevented with a Doctor on Call

A potential epidemic of Chicken Pox was halted by a simple email to the right people

Instant response from the Government Doctors


Empowerment of People- Attapatti

Veeramani, a man with disabilities, used to operate the pump for the Village Overhead Tank

The Village Head removed him from his job and gave the post to one of his relatives

Through the kiosk, he sent an email petition to the Chief Minister’s Cell, attaching his photograph

He got his job back !


Inter Village Singing Competition


In essence

Information and access to information leads to a significant increase in the quality of life People pay for improvements in quality of

life This makes it a sustainable option


How does one connect Rural India?

India has 600,000+ villages 700 million people

(under 1000 people per village)

Can Rural India afford Connections?

Needs Technology Sustainable Business Model Organisation which thinks and acts Rural


Innovative Technology to connect Rural India

To PSTN

To Internet35/70 kbps Always-on Internet plus simultaneous telephone

• Rs 7500 - 10000 per line price

•1 million lines being deployed

BSNL has fibre connectivity to most Talukas (county hq) CorDECT WLL developed at IITM

provides a telephone line and Internet connection in a 30 Km radius

can connect 85% of Indian villages start-up costs very low


Use Local Entrepreneurs to drive ICT

Today in urban areas: 950,000 such PCOs covering

every street of smallest town generate 25 % of total telecom

income 300 million people use these

PCOs Lesson for Rural:

To serve Rural people with incomes less than $ 1/day, aggregate demand and let Entrepreneurs drive it

Entrepreneur-driven operator assisted telephone booths (STD PCOs) introduced in 1987

Aid/ Grant does not scale Successful Enterprises can scale to all villages

102.1

1710

3.9 1.9 1 0.3 0.30

20

40

60

80

100

120

3 9 13 18 26 42 65 112

HH Income in thousand Rs/month

Nu

mb

er o

f H

H in

mill

ion

s

135 million rural households


n-Logue : A Rural Service Provider aggregate demand into a kiosk

Rs 50000 per Kiosk providing telephone, Internet, multimedia PC with web-camera, printer and power back-up for PC

plus Indian language software, video conferencing software, training and maintenance

set up by a village entrepreneur on the lines of urban PCOs provides telephone, stand-alone Computer and Internet

services needs Rs3500 per month to break even (Rs3:50 per person

per month)

Innovative Business Models

The Business Model

Services Revenues

n-Logue

LSP-1 LSP-2 LSP-3

Kiosk Kiosk Kiosk Kiosk Kiosk

Villagers

Provides Training and Technical Support Handles Licensing and Policy issues Provides Internet Backbone Connectivity Enables Kiosk Services through Alliance Partners Creates Awareness

Application & Solution Providers

Internet Backbone

ACCESS CENTRE

Local Service Partner

Markets Connections Provides Onsite Support and Training Manages Local Web & Email Services Manages Local Content Pages

Scope:3000 sq km400-600 connections (1 in each village)

Internet Kiosk Operator

School/PHC Private Business Government Office Rural NGO

Provides Internet Access to Local Community Provides Awareness and Training Channels Information needs of Community through

LSP to Application & Content Providers

Financing


A Suitably Positioned Kiosk Like this …

Tamil Nadu


Or these…

Maharashtra

Rajasthan


The Kiosk Owner

Should have studied up to Class 12

Need have no prior computer Training

Should be able to communicate to the people in the village


A Kiosk Owner/Operator


Kiosk: Bouquet of Services (beside telephony)

A variety of Services and Applications, relevant to Rural people, need to be enabled

No single service can stand on its own Education Livelihood Health Entertainment Communication E-Governance

Learning typingComputer educationPhotographyCD moviesDTP workEmail/voice & video mailE-GovernanceVideo conferencing providing Telemedicine

Vet CareE-learning E-Agriculture



E-governmentservices at a Village

VILLAGE KIOSK • Dispersal of

• PDS coupons• Application forms for exams,

etc

Physical Dispersal

• Payment of • Municipal taxes• Electricity Bills• Bus Tickets• Purchase of Seeds /

Fertilisers• Entrance and Exam Fees

Net Banking

• Distribution of Application Forms

• Information from Online Databases like

• BPL lists• Electoral Lists, etc

From Central Website

Information Dissemination

• Text, Audio, Video formats of various Government / Public service Announcements

• Video-conferencing between Collector and villagers• Physical Notice Board outside Kiosk on which Govt.

Notices can be pasted


The Dream

Current Rural GDP in India = Rs 700,000 Crore

For a Population = 700 million people

GDP / Person = Rs 10000 per year

DOUBLING per-capita Rural GDP

Rs 20000 per person per year

Rural Prosperity


Agriculture

AnimalHusbandry

Agricultural Processing

Industry

IT-Based Services

Trade & Commerce

Rural Micro-Enterprises are the Wealth Creators

Micro-enterprises need Finance Knowledge and

Training Buying & Selling Insurance

Can Communications Enable these ?


Operations

Project Summary & Plans

462719Totals615Others16151Gujarat

1486Maharashtra

1037TN

TotalActiveLiveState

Plans 78 Projects by March 2004

Maharashtra: 30 TN: 25 Gujrat: 16 Others: 7 125 kiosk/project

10000 kiosks by Jul-Sep 2004

Projected Breakup of Kiosks

3000

2500

3500

800

TN Gujarat Maharashtra Others

Technologies & people behind n-Logue


Technologies in Use

corDECT WiLL Midas will enable 100/200 dedicated and

2 Mbps shared connection next year

RAS & Router Banyan Minnow ISP in a box Nilgiri

Billing System Nilgiri Network Management NMSWorks Chirag voice/video mail TeNeT Power back-up Alacrity Indian Language Office package CK


To PSTN

To Internet

corDECT Wireless in Local Loop

35/70 kbps dedicated Always-on Internet plus simultaneous telephone

100/200 kbps dedicated & 2Mbps shared connection in near future

Price target: Rs 5000 to Rs 7500 per line

802.16 in future

IITM - Midas

Office package in Indian Languages IITM - Chennai Kavigal

Network Management System

A must with distributed deployment of Intelligent nodes

Convergence of Telecom and Internet management Manage traffic, subscribers,

subscriber equipment and network health from management centers

IITM-NMSWorks

IITM-Nilgiri Networks

Rural communications software developed in a rural setting

BlueBill: real-time billing for voice, Internet and applications

Minnow: ISP Data Centre on redundant Linux/PCs


Major New Initiatives

Multi-party multi-rate video conferencing OOPS Live Lecture OOPS

Rural ATM Machine Vortex Finger print detection HP-IITM

Medical Diagnostic kit NeuroSynaptic LCD projection system TeNeT Web Terminal MeTeL Midas

Entertainment Terminal TeNeT Rural Banking SW TeNeT On-line eye-testing HP-IITM Sparse Area Comm System TeNeT

TeNeT faculty and 10 companies incubated by it (1000 engineers) working to make the dream true


Low bit-rate multi-party Video Conferencing (audio + video + chat at 20 kbps onwards)

On-line lecturing at low bit-rates

IITM - OOPS


Financial Services with ICICI Bank

Kiosk operators to have Credit cards Collect cash from villager and pay online

Govt. payments, Telephone bills

Kiosk operator to be an agent for agri-crop loans Rural Insurance, Health and Crop

Rural low cost ATMs at kiosks Works along with the PC already existing Breakthrough pricing envisaged of Rs30000

IITM-Vortex


VITAL centres : Next 3 months

Village Internet Test and Analysis laboratory Upgrade the internet kiosk for basic “non invasive”

medical tests ECG (Sensors connected to the monitor) Stethoscope (plugged into the sound card) Pressure ( Digital BP meters ) Temperature Eyes ( Charts and Color blindness) Weight ( Regular weighing scale)

Upgrade PHC with Internet connectivity For Blood testing (over and above VITAL equipment)

Sugar and AIDS

Most of this equipment would be sourced at under Rs10000

IITM - NeuroSynaptic


• 8-10 voice channels + 64/128 kbps Internet satellite backhaul

• Each hub supports 16 to 20 remote sites with 2 Mbps download

• Rs 8000 corDECT + Rs10000 backhaul cost per connection

PSTN

Internet

2.4 m antenna3.8 m antenna

15 -25 Kms with 50 connections

2 M

bps

-->

128

Kbp

s --

>

<-- 256 Kbps

Sparse Area Communications where there is no fibre backbone

IITM - ISRO


Summary

Internet is Power every village need to be connected at the earliest

IIT Madras and n-Logue have a workable business model to revolutionize rural India Excellent goodwill Strong support from State and Central Governments

But the challenge is to make this happen in scale To expand the footprint from 1 million to 10 million people

from 1000 connections in 20 district to 10000 connections in 75 district in next 9 months

and then to 700 million

and simultaneously drive the rural economy to double per capita rural GDP


To Sum Up

ICT can reach everyone provided there is a big enough Vision behind it

Dream of Doubling per capita Rural GDP Finance, Commerce, Training &

Information are key Driving Education, Health and

Entrepreneurship is the means

Wireless Internet with fibre backhaul can enable these

Sparse Areas will require special technologies & efforts

Large number of innovative technologies and applications need to be developed catering specifically to Rural areas


Bringing the Net Effect to 700 million Rural Indians

Documents

rural people

rural indiabsnl

rural indianslet

villagecan rural india

lives of people

village entrepreneur

attapattiinter village

telephone line