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The entire project draws its sustenance from the holistic philosophy of Dr. M. S. Swaminathan, which emphasizes integrated pro-poor, pro-women, pro-nature orientation to development and community ownership of technological tools against personal or family ownership, and encourages
collective action for spread of technology. The project draws attention by using solar-powered network power-station. The local volunteers gather information and feed it into an Intranet and provide access through nodes in different villages. The project is jointly supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada and Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Canada with a partial support by Ford Foundation and Government of Pondicherry.

Gyandoot

This project is an outcome of the agreement between Drishtee and the district administration of Dhar. This would be perhaps the most outstanding initiative by government to launch e-governance platform. Gyandoot is more of a community-owned, technologically innovative and sustainable information kiosk. The project covers 20 village information kiosks in five blocks of the district. The entire network of 31 kiosks covers 311 panchayats (village committees), over 600 villages, which nearly covers 50 per cent of the district. Users' fee is charged at the kiosks for the services provided. Local rural youth act as entrepreneurs, running these information kiosks along commercial lines. Thus, it has become a commercially viable project with the potential to replicate to other parts of India.

The Simputer Project

Scientists from IISc and Encore Software brought this idea into practice. This project grew out of the dire need for an affordable access device for the rural population in the country. The Simputer is a low cost portable alternative to PCs, by which the benefits of IT can reach the common man. It uses simple and natural user interfaces based on sight, touch and audio eliminating the need for IT literacy. The in-built Smart Card feature enables the Simputer to be shared by a community. Approximate cost has been fixed to half that of the normal PC.

Taarahat

It is a project conceived by the Delhi-based Development Alternatives Group. The project provides a bunch of services like employment, mandi-market, e-mail, weather, matrimonials, etc., to the village community. A highly picturized interface makes it easier for a layman to use.

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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.