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Rationale & Approach

The international community recognizes the rural digital divide as a complex challenge. It is not only concerned with technology infrastructure and connectivity, but rather is multi-faceted
problem of ineffective knowledge exchange and management of information content as well as the lack of human resources, institutional capacity, and gender sensitivity. Bridging the rural digital divide requires an understanding of how persons in different cultures learn to use and apply ICTs, access to which is central to breaking down the divide. The real challenge is how to make technology serve the needs of those persons.

Many critics of providing tele-communication services to the under-served, usually poor region, argue that before providing ICT services, the people of these areas first need food, safe drinking water, increased health services, and employment. There is an easy answer to this - by bringing ICT services to the people, the rest of living conditions have the possibility to improve. By increasing ICT services, bringing knowledge to the people, it can lead to better informed health care workers, employment opportunities, and alerts of wells that are no longer safe, and improved methods of growing crops. Knowledge access would be further improved by providing bi-directional access; enabling communities to not only access information, but also to send it; therefore, increasing communication and cooperation between neighbors. Internet access in rural areas can allow for e-government services, such as providing local and national information. e-Learning can also be utilized, allowing even the smallest villages access to a quality education. e-Physicians can provide the poor with accurate diagnosis and the latest suggestions for treatment of diseases and other impairments.

There are several factors that prevent all citizens from receiving ICT services. The major factor is cost. The cost to bring access to the under-served is often hard to justify. Typically, the under-served are poor, rural, remote villages / communities, that are hundreds of miles away from urban areas. Even in urban areas, ICT services are usually restricted to use by the wealthy and privileged classes. The cost of deploying a typical copper network would be outrageous in these remote areas. The cost of even providing any ICT service seems to inhibit the private sector, since those served would not have enough money to pay for these services, and the company then would not be able to recover their deployment and maintenance expenses. The government can also prevent growth of ICT services by limiting funding, and/or the lack of proper regulatory and incentives to foster development. There can also exist a lack of education, even if ICT services are offered, as there has to be someone who can educate users.

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Dr. Gursharan Singh Kainth specializes in Quantitative & Development Economics, and is currently Director of GAD Institute of Development Studies, Amritsar, a self-financed research institute. Has been honoured with various awards, including Guru Draunacharya Samman, Vijay Rattan Award, etc.
Ms. Kamalpreet Kaur is Research Scholar at GAD Institute of Development Studies.
Article posted on December 28, 2008.