gyan ganga
TRANSCRIPT
Rural Telecom: A Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project
Advisor: Rekha Jain1
Authors: Payal Gupta2 and Sarvesh Madhu Agrawal3
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
1 Rekha Jain, Professor at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad 2 Payal Gupta, Research Associate working at Centre for Telecom Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Management 3 Savesh Madhu Agrawal, Student at Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 2
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Professor Rekha Jain for having provided us with this
opportunity to work on such an interesting topic under her invaluable guidance.
We are also thankful to Shadab Ambat, Research Associate, Centre for Telecom Policy
Studies, IIM Ahmedabad for extending help and valuable inputs in the process of
discussion.
My thanks are also due to all those people who agreed to be interviewed out of their busy
schedule and provided us with various insights and information about the project.
Finally we would like to thank all the village people, whose names are unknown to us, for
extending their unconditional hospitality wherever possible and also for participating in
informal discussions with us to quench our desire to catch a glimpse of rural life while
working on the project.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………4
2. Evolution of the Project……………………………………………………………….5
3. Objectives of the Project ………………………………………………….…………. 6
4. Initial Plan………………………………………………………………….………….7
5. Current Status…………………………………………………………….……………8
6. Selection of the Locations…………………………………………………….……….8
7. Technical Details of Project…………………………………………………………...9
8. Structure of the Project ……………………………………………………………...11
9. Financial Structure…………………………………………………………………...11
10. Stakeholders ……………………………………………………….……………….. 12
10.1 Government of Gujarat and GIL …………………………………….…………12
10.2 n-Logue……………………………………………………………..….………14
10.3 Local Service Provider (LSP)………………………….…….…………………15
10.4 Kiosk Operator……………………………………….…………………………16
10.5 Villagers……………………………………………….………………………..17
11. Fact Finding………………………………………………………………………….18
12. Findings……………………………………………………………………………...18
13. Issues…………………………………………………………………………………25
14. Comparison with Similar Projects…………………………………………………...30
15. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...32
Appendix 1: Locations of the Initially Planned Project Sites………….…………….34
Appendix 2: Location of ‘Live’ Projects, LSP Details and No. of Kiosk Centres
Functional…………………………………………………………………...……….35
Appendix 3: List of Equipments/ Softwares provided to Kiosk Operator by n-Logue
and Cost…………………………………………………………………………...…37
Appendix 4: Services Offered at Kiosks……………………………………………..38
Appendix 5: List of People Interviewed……………………………………………..42
Appendix 6: Questionnaires………………………………………………………….43
Appendix 7: Financial Viability of the LSP Operator……………………………….46
References…………………………………………………………………………….....48
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1. Introduction
Despite several attempts over the last more than ten years, telecom infrastructure in rural
areas is lagging behind the expected levels. There has been a phenomenal spurt in the
growth of tele-density in the country, with the evolution of new wireless technologies,
but the gap between the urban (25%) and the rural tele-density (1.85%) has been
increasing.
The scenario in case of internet spread is gloomier and hardly any rural areas have access
to broadband internet connections. In India as on April, 2005 total no. of broad band
connections were only 2.28 lacs which is a meager 0.02%. The primary reasons for the
slow growth of internet in country have been infrastructural bottlenecks, financial non
viability and absence of cost effective reliable technology.
With the advancement of technology, especially that in area of Wireless in Local Loop
(WLL), it has become possible to provide internet facility even in remote villages at
affordable prices.
In the recent years there have been several projects launched by the government (s),
sometimes in association with private parties, with basic underlying spirit of providing
the rural citizens with better mechanisms of governance using IT as a tool and leveraging
the connectivity for the empowerment of rural community so as to ensure a greater and
meaningful participation in the development process.
‘Gyan Ganga’ is one such project launched in Gujarat state by n-Logue with
aforementioned objectives.
This study has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the project in achieving the
stated objectives. The various aspects of the project which have been studied are:
§ Project Structuring ( Business Model adopted )
§ Project Financing
§ Commercial Viability
§ Pricing Mechanisms ( tariff structuring)
§ Regulatory Framework and Guidelines for Effective Implementation of the
Scheme
§ Social Benefits and Improvement in Quality of Rural Life
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§ Comparison with similar projects implemented else where in the country.
The case also highlights the various bottlenecks which slow down the progress of any
such project.
2. Evolution of the Project
Having realized the growing influence and importance of IT on a common man’s day to
day life and the potential of this emerging technology as a tool for better and more
effective governance, the Government of Gujarat came up with its IT policy. The mission
statement of this policy is as follows:
“To help improve processes in the Government by using computing devices,
communication systems associated electronics and software to provide better delivery
systems to the citizens.
It is very clearly understood that IT is not an end in itself but means to provide better
quality of life to the citizens of the State. It does not aim at merely automating existing
process but the target is to use IT to improve overall organizational efficiency and pass
the benefits to the citizens of the State.” (www.gujaratinformatics.com)
The objectives of the policy were to promote overall IT growth in the state of Gujarat to
create enormous new employment opportunities, to train and develop skilled manpower
in IT, to facilitate information outlets at the doorstep of the common man and, to make
Government - Citizen interface more effective, efficient and transparent.
There have been multiple initiatives taken by the Government in achieving these
objectives such as; creating ‘information corridor’ in the state connecting state capital to
taluka headquarters, IT Action Plan for each department, digitalization of all government
records, setting up separate IT department and fund etc.
The Gujarat government’s initiative to provide e-governance has evolved over many
stages. It initially started with ‘Mahiti Shakti’ Project in Panchmahal district of Gujarat
where the collector of the district offered a few collector office services to villagers
online by setting up information kiosks in some of the villages. In this project total 8
services were offered such as ‘Old Pension Scheme’, ‘Ration Card’ and ‘Permission for
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Hand Pump’ etc. 80 information kiosks were established in the district at various
locations. The project was a moderate success overall.
At the same time in a village of Bhavnagar district in Gujarat, village records were
digitalized on a stand alone basis. Inspired by the success of this individual project the
Panchayat Raj Department wanted to implement the same model for all the villages and
this led to the evolution of ‘e-Gram’ project in which all the village Panchayat records are
being digitalized and all the ‘Gram Panchayats’ are being interconnected as well.
The ‘Gyan Ganga’ Project has evolved out of the above mentioned projects with a greater
emphasis on bringing in a private party to be stake holder in the process of rural
empowerment through IT application. The private party in this project is n-Logue which
has been set up with the basic aim of bridging the digital divide between rural and urban
areas. The idea for the project was conceived in August 2003 and the roll outs started
taking place in July 2004.
3. Objectives of the Project
The ultimate objective of the project is to bridge the connectivity gap existing between
rural and urban areas in a cost effective manner. The various benefits which are expected
to accrue to rural population from this low cost connectivity are:
To build wealth by –
Reducing farming costs
Increasing crop yield
Enabling effective post harvest management
Reducing risks
Providing expertise in animal husbandry and watershed management
Enabling better credit options and facilities
To help plan the future through –
Curriculum based education
Adult education
Career guidance
Learning English
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Higher education possibilities
Computer awareness
Job and career opportunities
Financial assistance opportunities
To live a healthier life by having access-
Health and sanitation
Medical diagnostic plans
Medical insurance
Disease prevention communication
Medical assistance
To enable e-Governance facilities such as –
Online registration of various applications
Online public grievance forum
Information on Government programmes
Online application formats
Updated Government information
4. Initial Plan
The Department of Science and Technology on behalf of Government of Gujarat, and in
coordination with n-Logue, finalized the 16 locations where the project is to be
implemented. At each location it is planned to provide connectivity to 200 near by
villages. Thus, the project when completed will cover around 3000 villages of Gujarat
state. The names of these 16 locations have been given in Appendix 1.
5. Current Status
As of now the project has been started in seven out of sixteen initially planned locations
and around 200 kiosk information centres are currently operational. Three more projects
are on the verge of commencement with in a month or two. The detailed information
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about each of these ‘live’ and ‘in pipeline’ projects such as name and address of the LSP,
no. of kiosks functional has been provided in the Appendix 2.
6. Selection of the Locations
The selection of the locations for the project was done by Gujarat government and n-
Logue in coordination with each other. Government had asked n-Logue to have four
tribal areas and one hilly area as project locations as no other service provider will go
there.
The various parameters were considered in deciding the location of a project.
On commercial viability side the parameters considered were; number of villages covered
under one project, population of the villages covered in a project (more the number of
villages and population, larger the reach hence greater the business potential!). In general
projects covering more than 150 villages, each having population more than 3000, were
considered to be viable. All the villages covered were also required to have satisfactory
level of literacy as usage of computer and IT will directly depend upon literacy level of
the population covered.
No other socio economic factors were explicitly considered in choosing the location of
the project.
There were a few technical parameters which were also considered while deciding upon
the location. They are; the geographical terrain, back bone connectivity (BSNL lease
line), availability of power etc.
Availability of power is major factor which influences the success of an IT project.
Government of Gujarat has taken an initiative in providing uninterrupted twenty hours
power supply to all the 18000 villages of Gujarat. The project is named ‘Jyotirgram’ and
so far has been able to cover 9000 villages of the state.
7. Technical details of the project
The corDECT technology has been used in providing the last mile connectivity under the
project. corDECT is India’s very own Wireless Local Loop (WLL) technology, jointly
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developed by Analog Devices Inc., Midas Communication Technologies (P) Ltd. And
TeNet group, IIT Madras. Based on the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications
standards specified by European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI),
corDECT provides cost effective, simultaneous high quality voice and data connectivity
in both urban and rural areas. This indigenous technology provides voice communication
using 32 Kbps ADPCM, and Internet connectivity at 35/70 Kbps.
How it works:
Employing Multi-Carrier Time Division Multiple Access (MC-TDMA), a technique in
which the frequency can change from one time slot to another, DECT defines a wireless
communication standard between a Fixed Part (FP) and a Portable Part (PP).
Communication takes place using Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying (GMSK)
Modulation.
This new system uses a frame of 10 msec in which 24 time slots are defined.
Communication between FP and PP is time-division duplex in which 12 time slots are
used for a one way transmission. In a 20 MHz frequency spectrum, 10 carriers are
defined. Thus, for communication from PP to FP, 10 carriers can be used in each of the
12 time slots, amounting to 120 channels.
In DECT, no channel is permanently assigned to any FP or PP. This means, any PP can
select any of the 120 channels to communicate with a FP using the Dynamic Channel
Selection (DCS) algorithm. The algorithm requires the PP to measure Receive Signal
Strength (RSSI) on all the 120 channels. It locks to the FP providing the strongest signal
and then maintains a RSSI table for all other channels. When a PP tries to establish a
connection, it chooses the channel providing lowest interference. Even while a
communication process is taking place, the RSSI table is periodically updated and if a
channel with less interference than the current one is found, a seamless handover to the
new channel takes place.
ETSI has specified the 1880 - 1935 MHz band for DECT. Normally any 20 MHz band
out of this spectrum can be chosen for operation. Each DECT channel can carry 32 kbps
of payload, and the voice coding employed in DECT is 32 kbps ADPCM. It is also
possible for two DECT channels to be combined to provide data communication at 64
kbps between PP and FP.
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corDECT subscriber terminal, called Wallset, provides an RJ-11 telephone port and an
RJ-232 serial port for simultaneous internet access using a PC. The Internet access speed
is 35/70 Kbps. The corDECT system has been designed such that it can be easily
integrated with the existing network. The system interfaces to the network on E1 (2.048
Mbps) lines as per ITU-T G703 standard. In one of the configurations, the corDECT
system acts like a switch along with the wireless local loop. The numbering plan is
flexible so that it can be modified as per the requirements. The tones, announcements,
metering, charging, switching, routing and special services are provided by the `switch
part' of the corDECT system. Alternatively, corDECT can also be configured as an
Access Network connected to a main exchange using ITU-T specified access protocol
V5.2.A transparent version with two-wire analog interface to any exchange is also
available for quick rollout.
corDECT has been designed to be a modular system. While the basic unit provides
service to up to 1000 subscribers, multiple corDECT systems can be connected together
using a transit switch. The system has been designed in such a way that the initial
investment for the Fixed Part is low. Further, since this scheme does not require
frequency planning, the installations need not be coordinated. Coupled with the low cost,
it thus makes corDECT one of the most versatile Wireless in Local Loop systems
available today.
The advantages of using this technology are:
§ Wireless deployment in last mile
§ Cost effective
§ Both Internet and telephony can be offered simultaneously with out incurring any
additional cost for telephony while using internet
§ Fast deployment in difficult terrain
§ High Internet speed which is around 7 times faster than a dial-up connection
(www.n- logue.com)
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8. Structure of the Project
The project structure is a three tier structure. On the top is n-Logue which is the main
driving force behind the project. It acts as a central agency responsible for planning,
implementing, maintaining and monitoring all the projects once operational. It provides
partly financial support and full technical support for each project. It works in
coordination with Government of Gujarat in identifying the locations for the project and
also selects the local service provider (LSP) for a given project area.
At the middle level of the project is Local Service Provider (LSP) who is an important
interlink between n-Logue and the kiosk operators who actually run the Gyan Ganga
centres, also known as ‘Chirag’, in the villages. For each project an LSP is identified by
n-Logue who is having strong entrepreneurship skills as well as good rapport in the
project covered villages. He is also required to have in depth knowledge of business
environment in the rural areas and also sufficient know how and experience in dealing
with the IT sector.
The lower most level of the project, and perhaps the most critical one, consists of kiosk
operators in the villages who actually run the show in the field. There are not any
specified criterions for the selection of the kiosk operator. The process, in general,
involves identification of the operator by the LSP who either knows him personally or
through some other reliable source. After the identification, the LSP approaches the kiosk
operator and explains him about the project and possible benefits of the project and offers
him to be the kiosk operator for the village. A basic knowledge of computers and internet
is pre requisite for being the kiosk operator and the operator should have his own premise
(either owned or rented) to run the centre.
9. Financial Structure
Each project costs around 40 -45 lacs towards setting up initial infrastructure such as
towers, repeaters, access centre and power backups etc. This initial one time cost includes
cost of covering around 200 villages under one project umbrella. This cost is financed
with equal contribution, approximately 15 lacs each, from Government of Gujarat (GoG),
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n-Logue and LSP. The GoG contribution is in form of one time aid. Once the access
centre is set up and the project is operational, the access centre is run by LSP on an equal
partnership basis with n-Logue. All the operational expenses and revenues are shared
between both the parties. On an average Opex of an access centre is around 25,000 to
30,000 Rs which includes electricity bill, lease line payment to BSNL, staff salaries,
providing technical support to kiosk operators, maintenance etc. Apart from this the LSP
will also have a Capex component of around 25,000 Rs. mainly on the account of interest
to be paid on the loan taken to finance the initial sum of 15 lacs.
LSP also has to deposit Rs. 5 lacs with n-Logue for 5 years as a caution deposit.
At the kiosk operator level, he has to make a one time payment to n-Logue of
approximately 60,000/- Rs. In return he gets a computer, 4 hours back up UPS, coDECT
kit, a digital camera and a color printer and six month free internet connection. All these
equipments are supplied by n-Logue on a non- subsidized basis with one year warranty.
A list of all such equipments and software is provided in Appendix 3.
Apart from this every kiosk operator also pays Rs. 1500/- to the LSP as one time
registration fee.
After the first 6 months of installation the kiosk operator has to renew his connectivity
license every month for a fee of 1100 /- Rs. This connectivity fee is the major and only
source of revenue for the LSP and the company.
10 Stakeholders
10.1 Government of Gujarat and Gujarat Informatics Ltd. (GIL)
The role of Government of Gujarat in this project is limited to providing financial
assistance as well as support services for ‘e-Governance’ such as soft copy of all
Government forms, coordination with various government agencies for content
development etc. On behalf of Gujarat Government, Gujarat Informatics Ltd (GIL) acts
as coordinating agency with n-Logue at top level.
Gujarat Informatics Ltd. (GIL) was established as the nodal agency for IT development in
the state in February 1999, by the Government of Gujarat. The company was started with
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a clear objective to promote IT and accelerate the process of e- Governance in the state.
Along with the announcement of the IT policy, the Government has enabled GIL to
effectively implement IT projects in the state.
The various e-Governance projects taken up by GIL, apart from ‘Gyan Ganga’, are:
§ Center of Excellence
§ eCity
§ eDhara - Land records online
§ eGram
§ eNagarpalika
§ E-Databank
§ E-Governance Newsletter
§ Form Book & GR Book
§ Integrated Workflow & Document Management System (IWDMS)
§ Mahiti Shakti
§ Sales Tax and Treasury
§ SWAGAT (State-Wide Attention on public Grievance by Application of
Technology)
§ Talim Rojgar (www.talimrojgar.org)
§ Tele Fariyad
There have been few networking projects also undertaken by GIL such as:
§ Gujarat Portable VSAT Station
§ Sachivalaya Integrated Communication Network (SICN)
§ Sachivalaya campus Area Network (SCAN)
§ Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN)
The results so far have been mixed, but the important aspect is that the government has
realized that e-Governance is not just a one time change process, but an inevitable way of
governance, that brings with it the promise of convenience and transparency. Also, it has
been understood that the actual achievement of an e-Governance would not be complete
without having proper laws, legislations, standards and best practices in place. For more
information about these projects (www.gujaratinformatics.com).
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10.2 n-Logue
n-Logue has been established under the aegis of the Telecommunications and Computer
Networks (TeNeT) Group of IIT, Madras, which is dedicated to evolve technically
superior and cost-effective solutions for countries such as India.
The TeNeT group has carried out extensive research on the issues associated with
providing connectivity in small towns and rural areas, and it has set up n-Logue with the
mission of providing Telecom and Internet services in such places.
The mission of the company is to provide Voice and Internet services in every
underserved village and small towns in India in a cost effective and self sustainable
manner.
n-Logue has a target of setting up around 2500 Access Centres across the country in next
3 years. That amounts to around a million subscribers in rural areas. The technology
being deployed by the company is corDECT.
n-Logue's business model is a decentralized model of operation (inspired by the cable TV
operations in India), whereby it identifies and partners with a local entrepreneur in every
place that it wishes to operate. It has also formed strategic alliance with various hardware
and software service providers, local language content providers and connectivity
providers in order to be able to implement its project in a cost effective and timely
manner using their expertise in the related areas.
Some of the ongoing projects are in Nellikuppam, Cuddalore District (with EID Parry),
Melur, Madurai District (with MIT, Harvard, and the I-Gyan Foundation), Dhar District
(with the State Government), Durg District (with the State Government), Sikar District
(with the State Government), etc.
n-Logue has also signed an MOU with Satyam Infoway to provide bandwidth for these
projects, and is making the case for a Rural Service Provider model to provide Voice
services along with BSNL / BSOs.
As mentioned earlier in the report that in case of ’Gyan Ganga’ project, n-Logue is the
agency responsible at the top most level for planning, implementing and monitoring the
project. It is mainly responsible for providing technical and marketing support for the life
cycle of the project.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 15
In detail, the responsibilities of n-Logue are:
§ Supplying the Access Centre equipment and setting up the Access Centre along
with the support and training of LSP’s technical and networking staff in its
installation, operation and maintenance
§ Sourcing of cost-effective equipment for the kiosks
§ Supplying the equipment for the kiosk operator along with support and training in
their installation and the maintenance of kiosks
§ Marketing support and training to the LSP
§ Providing back-up support for all technical problems
§ Assisting in procuring all regulatory approvals including ISP license, agreement
with BSNL / BSO and approval from the Wireless Planning Cell (WPC)
§ Getting backbone connectivity to the Internet and PSTN network
§ Training in Internet content handling
§ Bringing in Internet content and applications through strategic tie-ups with
content and application providers
§ Helping the LSP with business proposals for financial assistance
§ Helping the Kiosk operators to link up with micro-finance organizations for
subsidized loans
10.3 LSP
The selection of LSP is entirely left to the discretion of n-Logue. The selection process
includes placing an advertisement in the local newspaper inviting people to be LSP in the
respective area. There are certain criterions based on which the selection of an LSP is
done. These criterions are:-
1. Business experience in related fields like IT, Telecom, Services in rural areas
2. Local medium size businessman with sound financial condition, strong
entrepreneur skills and a good track record
3. Well connected with local people with sound understanding of rural business
4. Commitment and willingness to learn and develop rural areas
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So far n-Logue has received enthusiastic response to all its advertisements inviting people
to become LSP and based on the response n-Logue team identifies and interviews the
prospective LSPs and evaluates them on the above mentioned parameters to select the
LSP for the area.
The responsibilities of the LSP as envisaged in the project document are:-
1. Installing the equipment at the kiosk premise, training the kiosk operator and
providing after sales service and maintenance.
2. Maintaining the equipment at the Access Centre as well as ensuring the
uptime of the links to the internet and telephone backbone services.
3. Marketing the project in as many villages as possible to extend the reach and
benefits of the technology to as many people as possible
4. Creating awareness and educating people about the benefits and usage of
internet.
5. Helping in identifying possible applications and content that may be useful to
the rural population.
6. Billing the kiosk operator and collecting revenues as per the agreed billing
cycle.
The LSP has been given full freedom to select kiosk operators on his own and he also
gets to decide about what all villages to provide connectivity first. In general an LSP
starts his/her operations with a few villages (with more population!!!) in the beginning
and then gradually expands his network to 200 villages. The LSP we met had the kiosk
started in as many as 48 locations but now only 22 are ‘live’ as rest of the kiosk operators
opted not to subscribe to the connectivity as it turned out to be commercially non viable.
10.4 Kiosk Operator
As mentioned earlier in the report that kiosk operator is selected by LSP and is required
to have some basic knowledge of computers. He has to make an initial investment of
around 60,000/- Rs. The LSP helps in arranging loan from banks (mainly SBI), if needed,
on a monthly installment repayment basis. The installment amount and duration of loan
varies depending upon the local bank and the financial position of the kiosk operator.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 17
All the kiosk operators undergo a 10 days ‘training’ to learn about the computers and the
functioning of kiosk.
The kiosk operator is basically responsible for daily operations of the kiosk in the village.
He is provided with a basket of services offered by n-Logue and LSP. He can choose any
of the services depending upon local requirements and demand. The services offered
consist both of on line and offline services. Apart from these services he is given full
freedom to develop and provide any service which he thinks to be beneficial to villagers
and commercially viable also. The services offered in general consist of computer
education, digital photography, astrology, video conferencing, medical and agricultural
consultancy, astrology, e-mailing, board exam results, government forms etc. A list of all
such offered services has been provided in the Appendix 4.
The responsibility of publicizing the information kiosk and the services offered by it in
the village lies with the kiosk operator. They use multiple modes of publicity such as
distributing pamphlets, organizing seminars in the village schools, organizing some
competition for the school children, word of mouth etc. In general the village dairy
centres where almost all the villagers assemble twice in a day are the best place to
publicize.
10.5 Villagers
Villagers are the end users to whom the benefits of this project are envisaged to have
percolated. The one major objective of the project was also to create awareness among
villagers about the computers and IT services and provide them with hands on experience
with the computers. To what extent the project has succeeded in achieving this objective
will be discussed shortly. But one must realize that there are so many parameters upon
which the success rate depends such as; literacy, level of education in the village, income
level, type of occupation, social structure of the village, existing facilities, real demand
for the services offered etc. The attitude of the villagers towards learning a new
technology also plays an important role in achieving the desired end result.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 18
11. Fact Finding
The preliminary information about the project and the technology has been collected
through various websites of the respective organizations. A list of all the websites has
been provided in the reference section. It was a bit disappointing not to find any website
dedicated and developed for the project as it has been developed for another similar
project ‘Mahiti Shakti’ in Gujarat.
To find out the ground realities of the project, method of survey and interview was
adopted. Attempt was made to interview people associated with the project at all the
possible levels such as government officers, n-Logue officials, LSPs, kiosk operators and
the villagers. Visits were made to few villages in order to interview kiosk operators and
the villagers. A list of all the people interviewed so far has been provided in the
Appendix 5.
Different sets of questionnaires were prepared for people associated with the project at
different levels. The questionnaire were designed in such a way to cover a variety of
issues such as project structure, financial viability, technical details, demographic
information about the village, benefits perceived and services delivered etc. The
questionnaires also have been provided in the Appendix 6.
12. Findings
In the process of fact finding quite a few interesting discoveries were made, different
view points gathered, and it provided insights about how the project and the benefits
associated with it are perceived differently by different stake holders involved in the
process
§ The selection of LSP has been a fair and transparent process. All the written down
criterions for the selection of an LSP have been followed to the extent possible.
The advertisements placed by n-Logue in local news paper generated enthusiastic
response in most of the cases and people with sufficient knowledge of IT business
volunteered to become LSPs.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 19
§ The availability of the loan for the LSP is a major problem. Banks are not
convinced about the financial viability of the project; hence it is nearly impossible
to get bank loans at cheaper rates. LSPs have to resort to high interest rate loans
(18%) from relatives or some other source. A preliminary analysis of financial
viability of an LSP is presented in Appendix 7, in which it can be seen that the
project break even duration for an LSP is eight to nine years even if an optimistic
case scenario of having at least 100 kiosks connected to the network is assumed.
In case of kiosk operators the bank loans are easily available with interest rate of
around 8-12 %. The prime reason behind the difference in the attitude of the
banks towards providing the loans to LSP and the kiosk operators is that the
business risks associated with the LSP is higher than the kiosk operator as the
LSP will have only connectivity as his/her source of revenue while the kiosk
operator can generate money out of offline services also. Secondly the amount of
investment required at LSP level is much higher than that of the kiosk operator
and in case of kiosk operator the LSP helps him in getting loans as his own
income is dependent upon number of kiosks functioning.
§ The LSP maintains a staff of around 5 people at the Access Centre consisting of 2
engineers (trained by n-Logue), 1 Project Executive, 1 Marketing Executive and 1
Customer Care. As mentioned earlier the salary expenses are jointly born by the
LSP and the n-Logue company.
§ The LSP expressed satisfaction with the technical support provided by n-Logue.
But at marketing, content development and service delivery frontier they are quite
unhappy with the company. Even after one year the services promised could not
be started such as English speaking course, online education, medical and
veterinary and agricultural e-counseling and e-Governance etc. They also feel that
the company should have put in more efforts in making e-Governance a reality as
the LSP will have lesser authority in persuading government servants to
experiment with the new technology in delivering citizens faster and betters
services.
§ In some cases, where warranty period is over and the kiosk operator is not
‘connected’, the LSP is still providing them with the technical support hoping that
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 20
once in the future when the promised services become operational, these operators
will get back on network.
§ Various new services which are being planned by the LSP include tie ups with
cellular companies, banks, educational institutes and dairy co-operative society
and also provision of online e-bazaar.
§ The corDECT technology deployed is a sound technology with very few numbers
of breakdowns reported so far. People at all the levels expressed their satisfaction
with the working of the technology in all kinds of weather. The Internet speed
was also found to be satisfactory with any website opening in approximately 10
seconds.
§ Any of the villages visited did not have any formal computer centre before but at
few places people had personal computers which they used for personal as well as
commercial purposes.
§ The selection of kiosk operators has not been a well planned and implemented
process. Since the revenue of the LSP directly depended upon the number of
kiosks operating, so at many places people with very little knowledge of
computers and IT, little business skills, lacking interest in the project were made
kiosk operators just to get the kiosk started.
§ The training imparted to the kiosk operators appears to be a farce in which they
were imparted very perfunctory training about the basics of computer and that too
for a short period of time (about 8 to 10 days). They were also complaints by
operators about the content being in English language at the time of training.
However, the medium of training was Gujarati only.
§ The availability of the power seems to be a no issue as majority of the villages are
now being provided 24 hrs continuous power supply under ‘Jyotirgram’ project.
At all the places visited, except one, villages were covered by ‘Jyotirgram’ project
and power was available all the time as compared to haphazard and irregular
power supply before the project.
§ The six month unlimited internet connectivity charges were collected beforehand
itself in one time payment itself while it is being publicized as free of cost.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 21
§ The caste of the kiosk operators was also an issue in one of the villages visited.
He being from different caste as compared to the majority of population led to
people refraining from the use of the information centre.
§ In most of the villages visited, the centres were located in middle of village and
easily accessible to villagers. The centre timings and working days were also
found to be quite convenient for users. Only in one case the operator was
operating the centre in his house (because of need of height to set up the FRS),
which deterred people from using the services of the centre quite often.
§ Villagers were found to be aware of the existence of ‘Chirag’ computer centre.
This highlights the success of efforts put in by the kiosk operator towards
publicizing the facility. However, when inquired about the services offered,
majority of them only knew about the digital photography service offered by the
centre and in some cases about computer education also.
§ Despite the aggressive marketing and publicity done at some places by the kiosk
operators, the internet has not become popular among the villagers for two
reasons; one that they are not aware of the all possible potential benefits of
internet and secondly, because currently the services which they need the most are
not available online.
§ Currently majority of the services being offered by the operators are offline only
such as DTP work, photography, Xeroxed government forms, computer education
etc. Few of the operators have taken initiative to start additional services such as
general insurance, banking and astrology etc.
§ Currently the courses offered by n-Logue in area of computer education (such as
green red and blue book) are not officially recognized by the state government.
This makes it difficult for the kiosk operators to convince villagers of the
authenticity of the courses.
§ The digital photography with out exception is maximum money making service
for the kiosk operators as its fast and majority of villages have no other
photographer / studio in the village. The kiosk operators also act as photographers
in marriage ceremonies and festivals, in that case the centre is to be closed for that
period.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 22
§ Majority of the kiosk operators have discontinued with internet connectivity as it
proved to be a loss making affair. They have to pay 1100/- Rs. (LSP claims this
amount to be 1000/- Rs.) per month towards connectivity charges while the
revenue generated through internet usage are meager in comparison. In case of an
LSP who started with 48 kiosks, only 22 were functional and out of those only 3
have been continuing with internet. This builds an argument for charges based on
usages rather than having lump sum amount.
§ Currently VoIP is not being provided on these kiosks because Government of
India’s restriction on doing so for local and STD calls. This has taken away a
possible major source of revenue for the kiosk operators and this could have
benefited the villagers also because of low cost of making calls over internet. As
of now only international long distance calls are allowed to be carried over
internet and at few locations in Anand and Kheda districts, where majority of
population has relatives in gulf countries and Britain, kiosk operators are
providing this ‘Phone 2 Net’ services to the villagers who otherwise would have
to travel approximately 25 kms. to be able to make these calls. In turn, these
operators are generating handsome revenues. At few places the operator also
complained of the LSP charging very high commission for providing the ‘talk-
time cards’.
§ The promised medical and veterinary video conferences never took place at any
of the places so far. In case of the agricultural consultancy also the service is
almost dysfunctional at the places where it was started (which are very few in
number anyway). In any case it never took place ‘live’ by means of video
conferencing. Villagers were asked to mail it to the Access Centre where the Agro
expert will come once in a week and reply to those queries.
One should realize that in case of such enquiries time is of essence and a solution
provided a week later after the problem was reported is as good as no solution at
all. In some cases the queries were sent back to farmers to clearly specify the
problem again as by reading the mail the problem description was unclear. Most
of the farmers prefer to seek advice of the ‘Gram Sevaks’ on agricultural related
issues who regularly visit the villages (once in a week).
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 23
§ Much talked about regular video conferencing with all the government officials
also never took off. Only video conference which took place so far is once when
the Chief Minister of state, Mr. Narendra Modi talked to few villagers through
video conferencing from Pragati Maidan Delhi. Apparently the Government
officials are disinterested or too busy to conduct these conferences.
§ As far as e-Governance is concerned, none of the promised benefits materialized
except availability of a few government forms online (that also had some fonts
problem earlier). This also could not become driving force for the use of
connectivity as the forms once downloaded could be Xeroxed and used again and
again. These forms were available earlier also before the advent of the kiosk
centre and there were very few takers. The non availability of facility of online
submission of the forms also is a major hindrance towards delivering effective
services by government. The issue of few certificates such as birth and death
certificate, ration card, driving card etc could have given major boost to the
financial viability of the services but the problems associated with online issuance
such as authenticity and validity (digital signature required), nonchalant, and in
fact at some places adverse, attitude of the government servants towards IT
proved major obstacles in this becoming reality.
§ The availability of land records online is the major demand from the villagers’
side which could not be fulfilled till date due to lethargic and indifferent attitude
of Government machinery. This led to loss of interest in the facility among the
villagers and they also lost faith in the credibility of the centre as at the time of
inauguration of the centre they were promised online land records (known as ‘saat
bar ki nakal’ in local language).
§ The kiosk operators’ response towards the technical and content and applications
related support provided by the LSP has been mixed. The ones who are relatively
new and are still connected are happy with the services of LSP while the old ones
who have discontinued the connectivity displayed very high level of
dissatisfaction with the poor service and management policies of the LSP. There
have been cases in which the hardware related complaints of the kiosk operators
were left unattended for weeks leading to the closure of the centres at few places.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 24
A few kiosk operators also complained of LSP demanding money for repair and
maintenance while according to terms of agreement the kiosk operator gets one
year of warranty period on all the equipments supplied.
§ Earlier there used to be monthly meetings of kiosk operators with LSP but as the
complaints on part of the kiosk operators towards non availability of promised
services and poor technical support from LSP side, the meeting were
discontinued. However, the LSP continues to pay personal visits to the kiosk
centres on a regular basis.
§ Majority of villages do have landlines provided by BSNL in households and
significant no. of lines with STD facility also.
§ The reach of the TV in villages seems to be far wider (around 70-80 %) than
phone lines, with significant proportion of population having cable facility at
home. This raises an interesting question; should not there be anyway to exploit
this reach of TV and cable network to rural households to provide voice and data
connectivity?
§ Most of the villages visited also had primary health services available in the
village itself. Apart from the primary health centres run by Government, few
villages also had private registered medical practitioners. The complicated/serious
medical cases are referred to district headquarters or nearby town centres.
§ There has been no complaint on part of the villagers about the charges of the
services offered being too high. For most of the services charges have been fixed
by the company and kiosk operators have fo llowed it.
§ It was found that the villages which are more developed, have larger population
and have higher level of education and literacy, also have larger consumer base.
§ Usage of Internet among women was found almost nil with exceptions of a few
girl students here and there.
§ Credibility of the project, as perceived by the end–user, has been neglected in this
project. Gaining credibility involves building trust in the services offered by
delivering the promised services and a constant feedback loop between project
implementation team and the end-users.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 25
13. Issues
§ A cursory glance at the performance of the project so far would reveal that the
project, to a great extent, has failed to meet the specified objectives with which it
was initiated. There are many reasons for this, primary of them being failure to
deliver the promised services. Most of the services promised such as e-
Governance, medical and veterinary counseling through video conferencing,
agricultural advice, and online education were never made available which led to
the kiosk operator resorting to ‘offline’ sources of revenue such as photography,
DTP work, astrology etc. This reduced the importance of connectivity and after
first 6 months of trial with connectivity it was seen as a financial burden by the
operator and he/she discontinued with it, thus the whole purpose of the project
was lost.
§ The role of kiosk operator is of utmost importance for the success of the project.
If he himself is not aware of the potential benefits which can derived out of
Internet, or is not capable of providing the entire basket of services such as
computer education etc then the objectives of the project will largely be unmet.
They also need to be continuously updated on the latest happenings in the field of
IT.
§ Failure to deliver the promised services has led to a situation where there is a
feeling of mistrust between various stakeholders such as n-Logue, LSP and kiosk
operators.
§ The financial structure of the project also makes the LSP operations a high risk
enterprise as the initial investments required are large, the only source of revenue
is connectivity charge which again is highly service dependent and also depends
upon number of subscribers, the break even period is long (3-4 years) and
uncertainties are really high as the LSP has not much control over the service
delivery.
§ The project, no doubt, was initiated with holy intentions of providing rural
connectivity but the lack of necessary homework is quite obvious. Despite having
similar experience in some other cases such as ‘Mahiti Shakti’, ‘Gyandoot’ etc.,
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 26
where the promises made could not materialize, it seems that no lessons were
learnt from these projects. The similar promises have been made again and no
additional efforts or measures have been taken to ensure that this project does not
meet the similar fate. One should realize that the project is highly service
oriented project where the financial viability of the project at each level entirely
depends upon how fast and how effectively these services are rolled out. The
technology is one aspect but more important part is the applications which are
developed using the technology. Just providing the technology and assuming that
the service will follow is a wrong conception. One has to really put in his heart
and soul in developing the content and applications especially when there are so
many other factors that influence the delivering of the services.
For example, medical and veterinary services through video conferencing were
promised. In this case would not it be a better option to first make all the
concerned doctors in a particular project area familiar with the concept, conduct
some trials, formulate a nut and bolt strategy as how exactly and how frequently
these counseling sessions will take places, finalize the service agreements with the
doctors and then roll out these services in the concerned project area? Nothing of
this sort was done and the result is that even after 12 months of project being
launched not even a single medical video conferencing has taken place in any of
the covered villages. We don’t even know whether the doctors will be
comfortable with the idea as majority of the doctors prefer to see the patients face
to face, talk to them, measure pulse and temperature etc. How much of the same
comfort level can be attained through video conferencing is a debatable question.
§ One should also realize that the amounts of efforts one need to put in case of rural
marketing are of much higher magnitude as compared to the urban areas.
Perseverance and patience is the key to success. Unlike urban areas in rural areas
the spread of education is small and the basic needs of the villagers are different
as compared to an urban house hold. Once the kiosk becomes functional, the LSP
should ensure that timely and satisfactory technical and marketing support is
provided to the operator in order to ensure that kiosk operator remains connected
to the network.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 27
§ corDECT technology as mentioned earlier is capable of carrying both voice and
data packets simultaneously. Currently the technology is not being exploited fully
as the telephony services cannot be provided by the kiosk operator due to TRAI
restrictions. n-Logue is negotiating with TRAI to obtain rural area service
provider license. If provided, telephony will serve as a source of significant
revenue and at the same time will also benefit the rural population.
§ Currently the Government is not too much involved into day to day operations of
the project. After having provided one time financial aid there is no mechanism
built- in for continuous monitoring of the progress of the project from government
side. This gives rise to a wide range of problems such as commitment of
government officials towards the project, coordination among various
departments for delivering e-Governance etc. In absence of a clear government
objective this project is seen as a private project with no legal or administrative
binding on part of the government officials to pay attention to the requests of the
LSP to promote the use of IT in the government offices.
§ e-Governance is a term whose actual connotation is yet to be fully understood at
various levels of government. Its not just about mere availability of a few
government forms online, it should also bring an attitude change among the
various government departments and officials where they recognize and utilize IT
as a way of delivering citizen oriented services. In fact apart from the availability
of forms if the entire transaction could be done online then the benefits of e-
Governance would be realized in a much better way.
The efforts at higher levels of government are on and it’s the middle and lower
level of governance we need to focus on because finally this is the section which
directly interacts with the citizens of the state. The World Bank has recently
granted approval to the National e-Governance Action Plan (NEGAP) and
sanctioned half a billion of dollars to be spent over four years. But the past
experiences in this as well as few other similar projects show that mere
availability of funds does not translate into e-governance. It calls for first order
commitment of political will, with funding coming an important second. In a
World Bank finding it has been stated that putting up state of art hardware and
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 28
software in place is no answer to basic bad and non transparent governance. E-
Governance is an enabler in the effort to bring about better processes, improve
transparency and reduce corruption. The question is how well prepared we are to
initiate these changes and how receptive the entire government machinery would
be to this reform process? It not only requires digitalization of mountains of
government records but also a change in the mind set of the people to shed their
apprehensions about the technology. It will require training of government
servants at various levels, of various age groups, with different socio economic
back grounds, having varying level of educations etc. The willingness of these
people in adapting to the new scenario in which IT is the way of life will play a
crucial role in the success of various government initiatives towards e-
governance. Right now the lack of institutionalized procedures, non availability of
technical expertise to suggest electronic alternatives to various ultra complex
procedures followed in the government offices is another area of concern. What
perhaps we must be aiming for is the re-engineering and restructuring of the
government processes everywhere.
Finally the e-governance is all about effective governance specially for the
empowerment of rural citizens and these basic objectives can not be realized
without a firm commitment to the philosophy that e-Government seeks to provide
a better deal to citizens, especially in rural India, who have been unable to enjoy
their entitlements on account of multiple deprivations, particularly income
poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and absence of health care and a largely
corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy.
Along with the change at the bureaucracy level, we also have to focus at the end
user that is, the citizen of the state. Educating him about the e-governance and the
benefits of IT is an area where the projects like ‘Gyan Ganga’ play a critical role.
These projects impart quintessential basic computer education to the rural
population, create awareness among them about Internet and provide them with
hands on experience at IT at affordable rates.
§ Importance of education in the spread of IT has to be given its due importance. As
has been found in the villages that the awareness about the internet is directly
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 29
dependent upon the level of education of the villagers. If we just look around for
the internet usage and spending pattern in cities and towns in country we would
find that majority of the internet users either belong to commercial class whose
business has internet as an essential component, for example online trading,
banking etc., or the people who are at the higher end of the education system such
as college going students, researchers in various institutions or people who work
at higher levels such as managers, engineers in various business organizations.
And in most of the cases these users don’t pay directly for the internet usage as
it’s made available to them free of cost in most of the places as these
organizations realize that access to the internet to their employees is of paramount
importance. If we look at the usage of internet by a ‘common man’ in a city, its
very limited and students, who are the largest customer base for most of the cyber
cafes, use it mainly for chatting, e-mail and entertainment purposes and
sometimes for seeking information. All these users belong to the sections of
society who are highly educated and nearly impossible to be found in villages. So
along with the spread of internet we should also be focusing on providing higher
level education in the villages which will fuel the growth of the internet in the
rural areas and in turn internet can help in improving the quality of education in
rural areas. So both share a symbiotic relationship with each other and by working
in coordination can produce synergies in area of rural development.
§ The role of the project in bridging the computer awareness and education gap,
existent between rural and urban areas, can not be downplayed at all. The very
fact that because of the project villagers in 200 villages got an opportunity to try
their hands on computer should be seen as a positive step taken in right direction.
Because of the project, school children in those villages have access to computer
education today which has become a ‘must’ qualification now a days for any one
in every walk of life. In some cases some professional courses as ‘tally’ and
‘autocad’ were also being taught at the centres. Earlier the interested students
would have to travel to the nearest town centre to learn these courses, so the
savings in terms of time and money spent on traveling are significant. It also
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 30
makes them equally competitive with urban students when it comes to
qualification required for certain jobs.
§ The communication infrastructure set up under the aegis of this project in various
villages is a great asset which can be of significant local importance in future
when new development takes place in terms of policy making, services provided
etc. This can also serve a great deal in case of a natural disaster when other means
of communications are down.
14. Comparison with other similar projects
There have been quite a few e-Governance and ICT project initiatives taken in the
country in recent past and the results have been mixed so far. Centre for e-Governance,
IIM Ahmedabad conducts periodical surveys and studies to evaluate the success of such
projects. While some of the projects have been able to bring in more transparency,
efficiency and accountability, reduce cost and increase convenience to the consumers in
the delivery of citizen services, some others have failed to do so for multiple reasons.
One of the few success stories in e-Governance projects are that of Civic Centers of
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Gujarat (CCAMC), Fully Automated Services of
Transport – Andhra Pradesh (FAST) and, to an extent, Regional Passport Offices (RPOs)
across the country. The success of these projects can be attributed to the extent of
reengineering and improvement of back-end services, extent of integration of backend
processes with front-end and web site, degree of employee involvement and change
management and technological robustness of the system architecture deployed.
Meticulous home work, extensive marketing, customer oriented business approach,
simplification of complex government procedures and superior training imparted to the
staff also played an important role in the success of these projects.
Most of the projects mentioned above are urban projects. There have been quite a few
initiatives taken in rural areas such as ‘Mahiti Shakti’ in Gujarat, ‘Gyandoot’ in Madhya
Pradesh, ‘Bhoomi’ in Karnataka, ‘Drishtee’ in northern India, Land Property Registration
in Andhra Pradesh and ‘e-Chaupal’ by ITC in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, All
these initiative except ‘e-Chaupal’ were state driven efforts and had same objective of
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 31
greater welfare of rural population by means of e-Governance and citizen oriented IT
services. These projects had almost similar set up in terms of implementation, operation
and management with a few changes here and there. The services provided to rural
citizens were also similar except ‘Bhoomi’ which was exclusively for providing online
land records to farmers. The projects have been moderately successful in achieving the
envisaged results and have faced similar hurdles of infrastructure bottle neck, financial
non viability, lack of a project champion, lack of computerization of back end processes,
non responsive nature of government officials in the later stage of the project etc. The
weak value proposition for the end users was also a major cause limiting the success of
the project. Actually ‘Bhoomi’ is a good example of a project in which government
clearly and rightly identified the services which need to be provided online on a priority
basis. In this project land records (RTC) were made available to villagers online at a
nominal fee. Any alterations in the ownership of the land also could be made online. This
significantly reduced the time taken to complete the process and level of corruption
prevailing in the department.
‘e-Chaupal’ on the other hand is a private initiative taken by ITC for its own commercial
benefits (to minimize the length of the supply chain), which also resulted in increased
empowerment of the rural farmers as they had better access to information about market
rates in the nearby ‘mandis’. It was a win-win situation for both the parties as the
company was able to bring down its procurement costs because of removal of
intermediaries from the supply chain and at the same time farmers also got a better deal.
Though the objectives of this project were rather commercial in nature unlike other
projects with social motives, still a few lessons can be learnt from it about how to get the
end users interested and involved in the project, what value propositions to be provided,
how to overcome the regulatory hurdles and maintain and manage a large network of
around 140 kiosks.
The ‘Gyan Ganga’ project appears to be a mix of all previous schemes with improved
technology. Apart from the technology part no other learning from the past few similar
experiences have been incorporated while designing the project.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 32
15. Conclusion
Perhaps it is early comment on the long term prospects of ‘Gyan Ganga’ project, since
ramping up usage in rural areas takes time. An important lesson learnt should be that
building awareness and improving the usage patterns of ICT applications in rural areas
may take much more time than anticipated by a project team. This holds true especially
when the value proposition for the citizen is weak, as in the case of ‘Gyan Ganga’ where
in only one part of the entire process (availability of forms online) has been improved.
The digitalization of the back end processes and a seamless interface between back end
and the front end of an IT application is a must for realizing the meaning of e-
Governance in true sense. The roles and responsibilities of government officers need to
be clearly demarcated. In each department, IT enthusiasts could be identified who could
be responsible for a complete end-to-end delivery of a service to the citizen.
Given the non availability of promised service and a weak demand for existing services, a
new service is needed with broad and strong appeal that could attract a large number of
villagers to the kiosks, such as the issuance of certificates of land title to farmers.
So far we have not paid any attention to use the information technology to increase the
participation from the citizens of state in development process of the state.
One reason for this is that the promoters have seen the information kiosks only as a
mechanism for delivering services efficiently. Increasing the participation of the
community in the political or development process was not seen as one of the objectives.
Empowerment should become the focus of the next stage in the evolution of the project.
After getting over the initial obstacles being faced by the project and automation of
departments at various levels to ensure quicker service delivery, the scope of the program
can be widened to publish data on development plans and their implementation.
Partnerships can be built with grassroots organizations to encourage feedback on
development plans and systems.
The study of the project also raises few interesting questions, answers to which are open
ended. Given the prevailing political and administrative framework in the country, can
the availability of internet in rural areas can ever be commercially viable or even if we
assume that bureaucratic reforms will take place sooner or later, then does the
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 33
implementation of such projects, which fail to obtain desired results as of now due to lack
of serious commitment from the government side, not create a negative image in the
mind set of local communities about the utility of such initiatives? The issue is whether
the projects have been prematurely rolled out which might adversely affect the future of
any such improved projects because kiosk operators who had bad experience in this
project will hesitate to venture in to similar enterprise in future.
There is also the issue of ‘commercial’ viability of internet, because if we consider
internet to be an information dissemination tool then should we not also consider the
large social benefits derived because of this spread of information which are difficult to
quantify in monitory terms?
In this era of information technology, should not internet be considered the basic
infrastructure input required for the development of any society just like roads, ports,
power etc.? And if yes, then what mechanisms we should adopt to provide this
infrastructure utility to the all the citizens of the country?
Are there any lessons to be learnt from the explosive growth of internet in countries like
South Korea that were exactly in the same situation in terms of coverage a few years ago
as India is today? The Korea government pursued the broad band policy aggressively and
as a result of that today 80% of the households in the country have broad band connection
and 30% of their entire GDP transaction takes place online. No doubt that the two
countries are different in many ways such as size, population, education level, social
structure, type and size of economy etc. but there are certainly few lessons which can be
learnt from the Korean experience such as importance of strong political will in
delivering the results.
In conclusion one can say that there is a gamut of issues which need to be addressed
before launching such a project. Most of the times one needs to work in coordination with
different agencies to get these issues resolved. A lot of homework need to be done while
designing such projects especially in area of demand assessment, service delivery and
financial structure. Because of poor planning and execution even the greatest of the ideas
and the best of the technologies can fail to contribute significantly towards the uplifting
of the deprived section of a society.
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 34
Appendix 1: Locations of the Initially Planned Project Sites
1. Vyara 5. Mehemedabad 9. Wakaner 13. Palanpur
2. Dahod 6. Palitana 10. Prantij 14. Limbdi
3. Vaghodia 7. Dhoraji 11. Viramgam 15. Amreli
4. Shehera 8. Jasdan 12. Visnagar 16. Patan
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 35
Appendix 2: Location of ‘Live’ Projects, LSP Details and No. of Kiosk Centres Functional
Sr.
No.
Location LSP Address E-Mail No. of
Kiosks
1. Palanpur Mr. Niraj Garg Banas Kantha Dist. Co-operative Milk
Producers Union Ltd., Banas Dairy, Post
box-20, Palanpur-385001
Phone:- (02742) 253881/85
2. Mehmdabad Mr. Hitesh Patel 1, Pramukhdarshan, Khatalal Road,
Khatraj, Mehmedabad
Phone:- 9426005412
3. Visnagar Handed back to
company
- [email protected] 32
4. Patan Handed back to
company
- [email protected] 12
5. Vyara Mr. Pranav Joshi Gramshree Telent Pvt. Ltd, 1/1 Floor,
Vaibhav Complex, near Vaibhav
Cinema, Vyara-394650
Phone:- 9825641371
6. Prantij Ms. Heena Dave 3-Jogmaiya Complex, Opp. BSNL [email protected] 17
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 36
Sr.
No.
Location LSP Address E-Mail No. of
Kiosks
exchange, Railway station road, Prantij,
Sabarkantha.
Phone:- 9426580065
7. Palitana Mr. Kirtibhai Survey # 144, plot # 6/1, Gariyadhar
Road, Behind Leelapir Dargah,
Palitana-364270, Bhavnagar Dist.
Phone:-9824215360
8. Waghodia Mr. Sharma - [email protected] *
9. Dhoraji Mr. Gopal Khirsania - [email protected] *
10. Amreli Mr. Nishant Bhatt - - *
11. Shehera Mr. Rakesh Shah - [email protected] *
*Under pipeline
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 37
Appendix 3: List of Equipments/ Softwares Provided to Kiosk Operator by n-Logue
and Cost
Sr. No. Items/Description Net Price (in Rs.)
1. HCL multimedia PC with 15” color monitor, keyboard,
Mouse, 52X CD ROM, speakers, stand mike with 3
years onsite warranty
19580.00
2. 250V-A UPS with battery, 3 year warranty for UPS &
1 year for battery. Make: Alacrity CPS sinew 250 or
equivalent
7767.00
3. Digital camera – DXG 2.1 MP or equivalent 4420.00
4. Inkjet Printer – HP 5160 4472.00
5. FRS with cables 13,183.04
6. Local Language Software (750) and iSee software
(2250)
3000.00
7. Training on basic computers, Chiraag Internet services
and entrepreneurship
1322.40
6 months unlimited internet introductory offer 6612.00 8.
Total 60,357.00
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 38
Appendix 4: Services Offered at Kiosks
Chiraag Computer Education
All Chiraag computer education courses include online exercises and practice sessions,
tests and additional lessons.
Blue Book
Designed for children 6-9 years old, this 6-day self-paced learning course
introduces the computer to the children, making them aware of all the interesting
things that can be done with it. Blue Plus, a 26-day version of the course that
includes more details and practice sessions, is also available.
Green Book
Green Book is a 10-day course for students aged 10-17 years old. It teaches the
basics of Internet browsing and email use, and familiarizes the student with
applications such as CK Shakti, a local language office suite. Like Blue Book, a
Green Plus version is also available. The course is a 26-day Internet- intensive
version of the original.
Red Book
Red Book is the most comprehensive Chiraag computer training available. The 2-
month self-paced course focuses on teaching the intricacies of the CK Shakti
office suite, and is meant for those who are 17 and older and are interested in
enhancing their job skills or improving their businesses.
Other Education
English Early Reader
A 10-day English workshop to teach children to read and write frequently used
words in English. The course covers more than 100 words, and supports school
curriculum.
Online Testing Tutorial
The 10-month course is aimed at 9th and 10th grade students wishing to improve
their English Grammar, in preparation for higher education exams.
Topper CD
The educational CDs provide coaching in Match, Physics and Chemistry for
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 39
engineering and junior college entrance exams. The self-paced tutorials contain
self-tests and 8500 sample questions and answers.
Online Photoshop Tutorial
The online course teaches computer graphic skills to those interested in working
for a digital studio or printing house. It is also used by the kiosk operators to hone
their own photo studio skills.
iSee
The software is a multiparty video conferencing application developed by the
collaborative efforts of TeNet group and Oops Pvt. Ltd. The software was
developed specifically keeping in mind the requirements and communication
needs of rural areas. It enables users to do real-time sessions in different locations
at the same time, irrespective of time and distance. The software is only ½ MB in
size, takes less than two minutes to download, and works reliably on low
bandwidth networks with speeds as low as 12 kbps
Health
n-Logue has established several partnerships with area doctors and hospitals to provide
health expertise in remote areas. Using the kiosk's Web camera, villagers can send
pictures for diagnosis or conduct live videoconferencing consultations with health
professionals. One such partner is the Aravind Eye Hospital, an organization that has
built its reputation on providing free or low-cost eye care to thousands in India. Patients
are able to receive a preliminary diagnosis without leaving their village, and if further
treatment is required, they are directed to the nearest Aravind hospital or free eye camp.
A Web portal, WebHealthCenter.com, is also accessed through the kiosks. The site has
developed several local language interfaces for n-Logue’s kiosks.
Agriculture
n-Logue has also established regional partnerships that provide agricultural services to
farmers. Solution providers, such as the Tamil Nadu Agricultural College and Research
Institute, provide expert advice on better farming techniques and solutions to crop and
animal diseases via email and videoconferencing. Sales of tractors and spare parts
through the kiosks have been made possible through partnerships with farm equipment
manufacturing companies. In areas where many people own farm animals and pets but
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 40
have no access to veterinarians, some kiosks are also providing online veterinary advice
for livestock. Agricultural portals used by kiosks to find weather information, crop prices,
and best-practice farming techniques include JFarmindia.com, kvbaramati.com,
krishiworld.com, agriwatch.com. Potential future agricultural services include soil
testing, online farming “schools”, an early warning system on disease outbreaks, and
long-term predictions on crop prices, demand, and rainfall.
Email and Web Browsing
Browsing, email, voice mail, video mail, chat and video chat are available at all of n-
Logue’s kiosks.
E-governance
Kiosks provide access to government portals that contain online forms and applications
for documents such as birth and death certificates. n-Logue has also organized
videoconferencing sessions between village kiosks and local government officials.
Chiraag Bio-Data Maker
The Chiraag Bio-Data Maker is a bilingual online program designed to make a
professional resume and cover letter. The job-seeker provides the answers to predefined
questions, and the software generates the final product which can then updated with new
information, or formatted to the user’s preferences.
Chiraag Children's Center
Many kiosks also function as Chiraag Children's Centers (CCC). For a nominal
membership fee, children can come to the kiosk for three hours on Sunday morning to
participate in activities that include: reading and math, games, coloring, listening to and
recording songs, chatting online and sending email, watching movies, and using iSee
software to chat with people from other villages. On weekdays, the children can also
come twice a month and use the kiosk for an hour doing any online or offline activity.
Astrology
Through its partnership with Astrovision.com, villagers can receive personalized
astrological predictions and horoscope charts. Matrimonial services are also available.
Offline Services
Kiosks also offer a variety of offline services. DTP (desktop publishing) is the most
popular, followed by offline computer education, such as Mouse and PC Tutor. Chennai
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 41
Kavigal has developed CK Shakti, a local language office suite that includes a word
processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, an email client and browser. For
entertainment, villagers can also use the computers to watch movies, listen to music or
play video games.
Chiraag Photo Studio
Digital photographs can be taken and touched up at the kiosk. These are frequently used
for government documents, such as passport applications.
Source: - www.n-logue.com/services.htm
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 42
Appendix 5: List of People Interviewed
Sr. No. Name Post / Org.
1. Ms. Neeta Shah Director, Centre of Excellence, GIL
2. Mr. Shekhar P.T. Dy. Manager-Marketing, n-Logue
3. Mr. Hitesh Patel LSP, Mehmdabad
4. Mr. Jaydev Rawal Director, Gati communications Pvt. Ltd.
5. Mr. Ritesh Marketing Exe. Mehmedabad
6. Mr. Vimal Shastri Kiosk Operator, Modej Village
7. Mr. Ketan Bhai Kiosk Operator, Navagam Village
8. Mr. Preetesh Pareek Kiosk Operator, Bhumel Village
9. Mr. Chandra Sekhar Vyas Kiosk Operator, Nainpur Village
10 Mr. Kanu K. Chauhan Kiosk Operator, Areri Village
11 Mr. Sana Bhai Vilager, Modej Village
12 Mr. Kishan Villager, Areri Vilage
13 Mr. Kijal Student, Areri Village
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 43
Appendix 6: Questionnaires
To Gujarat Informatics Ltd. / n-Logue:-
1. What is the current status of the project?
2. What is the cost and duration of implementation of the project?
3. Project structuring and financing (who provides what?)
4. Tie up with n-Logue
5. Role of GIL and n-Logue in the project
6. Technical details of the project
7. Reasons for selecting this particular technology (corDECT)
8. Reasons for selecting these particular areas/villages
9. What kind of business model has been deployed at local level?
10. Procedure for selecting an LSP and any financial/technical support or training
provided to him
11. Coordination with various state agencies to develop the services and local
language content
12. Efforts on your side to create awareness/popularize the project among rural
people
13. What have been shortcomings or difficulties faced so far and what steps have
been taken to improve upon them?
14. Future plans to expand the scope of the project further
To the LSP / Kiosk operator:-
1. What was your incentive to take it up? (Did you apply for it or were you
persuaded by company officials to invest in this?)
2. Initial investment required and how you financed it?
3. How much you yourself understand the IT technology? (Any special
course/diploma done?)
4. What are the various services provided by you and the charges for them?
5. Have you yourself developed/provided some additional services and have you also
tried to popularize use of IT among villagers by means of advertising etc?
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 44
6. Is there a reliable supply of power and what’s the back up available?
7. How often you come across a hardware/software problem and how do you solve
it?
8. How good the technical support provided by n-Logue / LSP is?
9. How many people use your kiosk in a day and for what various services?
10. What are the various segments of consumer class you get (like commercial,
educational, domestic, medical, farmers etc)?
11. Are there any special occasions for the increased use such as matches/board results
etc?
12. What are the timings and days for the facility to be operative?
13. Revenue/Expenditure details on monthly basis
14. Has the awareness among villagers about IT increased and is the no. of users going
up?
15. Are the services available are effective (availability of doctor, effectiveness of
agro-solutions provided)?
16. Is it commercially viable or what are your suggestions to make it a greater success
or improve it?
To the consumer/villager:-
1. Education level and the income level of the consumer
2. Have you ever used a computer/IT application before inception of this kiosk?
3. How far is the kiosk from your place?
4. What are the various facilities available at kiosk which you put to use?
5. What types of calls do you make the most (local, nearest town, nearest market
centre, STD, ISD etc)?
6. Comparison of earlier expenditure with current expenditure on IT or its
alternatives
7. What are the perceived benefits from your point of view?
8. Are the doctors / advisors / Govt. officials really available through IT kiosk?
9. Any complaints (like charges being too high or inaccessibility etc)?
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 45
Miscellaneous:-
1. Geographic terrain of the area
2. Population of the village, literacy level, average per capita income, major source
of livelihood, Tele density etc
3. Any peculiarity about social structure etc?
4. What are the quantifiable change in living standard and socio economic structure
etc?
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 46
Appendix 7: Financial Viability Analysis of the LSP Operator
Assumptions:
1. First year amount invested is Rs. 15 lacs by the LSP operator.
2. Growth of kiosks is as follows
a. 25 in first year,
b. 50 in second year and
c. 100 by the end of third year
3. In a reasonable case scenario, we assume that 100 kiosks stay connected to the
network.
4. LSP has taken the Rs. 15 lac loan to start operations at an interest rate of 18%.
5. LSP gets back Rs. 5 lac back from the company at the end of the 5 year period which
was deposited as caution money, which he repays for the loan amount.
6. This EMI for the first five years is Rs.27027 (3.24 lakhs per year), after fifth year he
repays 5 lakhs, therefore his EMI for the last five years reduces to Rs. 14332 per
month ( 1.72 lakhs per year).
7. Assumed Opex of an access centre is Rs. 30,000/month i.e. Rs. 3.6 lacs a year, out of
which 50% is contributed by LSP.
8. Each kiosk operator pays Rs. 1100/- per month (Rs. 13,200 / year) as connectivity fee
to the LSP, of which he gets 50%.
a. The calculation for connectivity fees is done on linear basis.
9. All the calculations are done based on current prices.
10. Rate of discount for NPV calculation is assumed to be 15%.
(lacs)
Years Particulars Amount Year 1
Interest on Loan -3.24
Opex -1.8 Income 0.825 Total -4.22 Year 2 Interest on
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 47
Years Particulars Amount Loan -3.24
Opex -1.8 Income 2.475 Total -2.57 Year 3
Interest on Loan -3.24
Opex -1.8 Income 4.95 Total -0.09 Year 4
Interest on Loan -3.24
Opex -1.8 Income 6.6 Total 1.56 Year 5
Interest on Loan -3.24
Opex -1.8 Income 6.6 Total 1.56 Year 6
Interest on Loan -1.72
Opex -1.8 Income 6.6 Total 3.08
6th year onwards it’s Net Income would be Rs. 3.08 lacs every year.
Net Cash flow for 10 years
Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Amount -4.22 -2.57 -0.09 1.56 1.56 3.08 3.08 3.08 3.08 3.08
NPV at 15% is 1.10
Case Study on Gyan Ganga Project 48
References
§ Jain, Rekha and Raghuram, G., (2005): “Study on Accelerated Provisions of Rural
Telecommunication Services (ARTS)”.
§ www.gujaratinformatics.com
§ www.n-logue.com
§ www.trai.gov.in
§ www.iimahd.ernet.in/egov.htm
§ www.hindu.com/thehindu/seta/2003/03/06/stories/2003030600160200
§ www.hindu.com/2005/03/21/stories/2005032101751000.htm
§ www.i4d.csdms.in