Loading
-
Moving Towards Rural Well Being!
Nivedan Prakash, Feb 13, 2007 1304 hrs ISTThiruchelvam Ramakrishnan, an IT professional, along with like-minded friends in IT, did four years of dedicated research on the problems of rural areas.
Thiruchelvam Ramakrishnan, an IT professional, along with like-minded friends in IT field, did four years of dedicated analysis on social, economic, and administrative problems that are affecting rural India.
Dejected by the problems of the rural sector and realizing the huge potential of Internet technology (IT), Thiru and his team of software engineers have developed an IT-based commercially viable comprehensive web system, called 'it-rural.com', which they think could make rural sector a healthy, wealthy, and prosperous one.
Talking about the web system, Thiru, who left a lucrative job as well as his business plans to take up the cause of rural development, said, "it-rural.com is an integrated approach powered by IT. After understanding the entire architecture, we got convinced that coming from the village background, mapping the strength of IT to the problems of the rural side might help in sorting out the problems. We even realized that IT might be the last solution to the rural development, and without IT, rural transformation might not be possible."
"So, the objective of 'it-rural.com' is to not only provide an IT enabled integrated solution for the development of rural sector, but also improve rural GDP; increase earning per capita through maximizing profit to the employers and creating and regulating job opportunities to the employees; facilitate rural life by providing services such as Government-to-Citizen (G2C), B2B, education, health management, and shaping rural youth; and provide micro-level management power to various stakeholders through the IT enabled platform," added Thiru.
'it-rural.com' maintains a three-dimensional updateable relational database containing details of family members, plus a 'Generation ID' in order to move along with the generation-based family architecture of India. It also keeps agricultural base and transaction data containing names of land owners, irrigation sources, season name, major crop name, date of sowing, etc. There is also a data bank containing best knowledge of scientists and experts that could lead to optimal productivity and picture oriented diagnosis tool for disease control.
Describing this web system a unique one, Thiru pointed out that 'it-rural.com' caters to the development of the nation, is self-sustainable, an integrated approach for overall rural development, all stakeholders of rural sector get benefits, provide direct employment opportunity to educated village youngsters, and knowledge-oriented services at free of cost to villagers.
Based on the merit of their initiative, Thiru and his team got the opportunity to prove their system on a pilot basis in Pulivendla Mandal consisting 12 Panchayats and 30 villages in Kadapa District of Andra Pradesh, and interacted with 40,000 villagers.
Explaining the pilot program, Thiru, said, "We operated 11 IDP (Information and Data Processing) centers covering the villages. One project leader, six software engineers (contract basis), one senior retired agri-scientist, four advisors, two administrators, and 11 system operators, and 11 assistants (Panchayat-level) have successfully worked on vital parameters like awareness building, training better cultivation practices, farmers-scientist teleconference, literacy program, environment protection, shaping rural youth, amongst others."
On being asked how difficult it was to convince villagers to join your pilot project given the fact that literacy rate is very low in the rural areas, Thiru replied, "We took illiteracy in a positive way as it would make villagers depend on you. It means they won't apply their brain and ask unnecessary questions. We tried to make use of their illiteracy."
Thiru also informed that the Government of Andhra Pradesh has appreciated and accepted the track record of 'it-rural.com', and has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to scale-up the project to cover the Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh by establishing 1000 IDP centers.
Commenting on it, Thiru said, "We are neither a NGO nor a business body. We are just a group of youngsters, and government of Andhra Pradesh signing a MoU with individuals gives a clear indication about the urgency of the government to deliver the result at the grassroots level. Now our goal is to prove the scaleability of the model by successfully executing the MoU signed with the Government of Andhra Pradesh. And we are looking for potential investment agency to make this commercially viable venture to become a model for rest of the country."
"In addition, NASSCOM Foundation has also recognized our IT-oriented rural development initiatives by selecting it-rural.com as resource partner for their Rural Knowledge Network Program," said Thiru.
Summing up, Thiru described 'it-rural.com' as "a movement for economical stability with the business touch."
Dejected by the problems of the rural sector and realizing the huge potential of Internet technology (IT), Thiru and his team of software engineers have developed an IT-based commercially viable comprehensive web system, called 'it-rural.com', which they think could make rural sector a healthy, wealthy, and prosperous one.
Talking about the web system, Thiru, who left a lucrative job as well as his business plans to take up the cause of rural development, said, "it-rural.com is an integrated approach powered by IT. After understanding the entire architecture, we got convinced that coming from the village background, mapping the strength of IT to the problems of the rural side might help in sorting out the problems. We even realized that IT might be the last solution to the rural development, and without IT, rural transformation might not be possible."
"So, the objective of 'it-rural.com' is to not only provide an IT enabled integrated solution for the development of rural sector, but also improve rural GDP; increase earning per capita through maximizing profit to the employers and creating and regulating job opportunities to the employees; facilitate rural life by providing services such as Government-to-Citizen (G2C), B2B, education, health management, and shaping rural youth; and provide micro-level management power to various stakeholders through the IT enabled platform," added Thiru.
'it-rural.com' maintains a three-dimensional updateable relational database containing details of family members, plus a 'Generation ID' in order to move along with the generation-based family architecture of India. It also keeps agricultural base and transaction data containing names of land owners, irrigation sources, season name, major crop name, date of sowing, etc. There is also a data bank containing best knowledge of scientists and experts that could lead to optimal productivity and picture oriented diagnosis tool for disease control.
Describing this web system a unique one, Thiru pointed out that 'it-rural.com' caters to the development of the nation, is self-sustainable, an integrated approach for overall rural development, all stakeholders of rural sector get benefits, provide direct employment opportunity to educated village youngsters, and knowledge-oriented services at free of cost to villagers.
Based on the merit of their initiative, Thiru and his team got the opportunity to prove their system on a pilot basis in Pulivendla Mandal consisting 12 Panchayats and 30 villages in Kadapa District of Andra Pradesh, and interacted with 40,000 villagers.
Explaining the pilot program, Thiru, said, "We operated 11 IDP (Information and Data Processing) centers covering the villages. One project leader, six software engineers (contract basis), one senior retired agri-scientist, four advisors, two administrators, and 11 system operators, and 11 assistants (Panchayat-level) have successfully worked on vital parameters like awareness building, training better cultivation practices, farmers-scientist teleconference, literacy program, environment protection, shaping rural youth, amongst others."
On being asked how difficult it was to convince villagers to join your pilot project given the fact that literacy rate is very low in the rural areas, Thiru replied, "We took illiteracy in a positive way as it would make villagers depend on you. It means they won't apply their brain and ask unnecessary questions. We tried to make use of their illiteracy."
Thiru also informed that the Government of Andhra Pradesh has appreciated and accepted the track record of 'it-rural.com', and has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to scale-up the project to cover the Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh by establishing 1000 IDP centers.
Commenting on it, Thiru said, "We are neither a NGO nor a business body. We are just a group of youngsters, and government of Andhra Pradesh signing a MoU with individuals gives a clear indication about the urgency of the government to deliver the result at the grassroots level. Now our goal is to prove the scaleability of the model by successfully executing the MoU signed with the Government of Andhra Pradesh. And we are looking for potential investment agency to make this commercially viable venture to become a model for rest of the country."
"In addition, NASSCOM Foundation has also recognized our IT-oriented rural development initiatives by selecting it-rural.com as resource partner for their Rural Knowledge Network Program," said Thiru.
Summing up, Thiru described 'it-rural.com' as "a movement for economical stability with the business touch."
Related Links
Tag keywords
Discussion Board
(2) Comments
Vinit
,Surat, on Feb 13, 2007 11:02 PM
Report abuse
Opinion Poll
- Which desktop web browser do you use?
-
Internet Explorer
Firefox
Chrome
Safari
Opera
Other (specify in comments)
Poll Results View Previous Polls