Internet has failed to help the common man

IT has failed to help the common man NEW DELHI: Though more developments are happening in the field of information technology in India compared to the rest of the world put together, its benefits have failed to trickle down to ordinary people, say IT experts. "It is beyond doubt that there has been an extraordinary success of IT industry in India but all tall claims of providing its benefits to the common man have come to naught," contends Professor Kenneth Keniston, director of MIT Indian Programme, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US. Even in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, apart from Bangalore and Hyderabad, the situation is no different from other parts of the country, he said. The notions that exports of handicrafts from rural areas through e-commerce would alleviate poverty is an illusion, he says pointing out that the first impediment to such a scheme is the prohibitive cost of a computer. "Besides, the lucrative markets of Osaka, Paris and Stockholm are high-end ones and are already saturated," Keniston claimed. "E-governance is not a panacea," he added saying it may brag of rooting out social injustice and corruption but the reality is the common man still confronts these evils at various levels of governance. "The problems of government cannot be solved only through simple computerising," Keniston said. Acknowledging Keniston's viewpoint, Professor P V Indiresan from the Centre for Policy Research said, for the success of an IT project targeted at the masses, an amalgam of business and technology is imperative. It is a pity that very few Indian researchers are also bold entrepreneurs, he said. "It is the lack of this quality that has plagued the Simputer (portable, hand-held, inexpensive computer developed by scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) from being available in the Indian market," he lamented. "The team which has developed the device is ingenious but has a complete lack of marketing strategies," he added. Keniston argues that for a project aimed at the masses to become successful in a diverse and populous country like India it has to adapt to the particular requirements of the area. "Another key factor in such projects is sustainability, which is increasingly discussed but rarely achieved." India has more NGOs than any other country and "initially these NGOs and state governments pump money into pilot projects but later they get tired with the result the projects get stalled," he added. "Rural IT projects lack management skills and are generally centered around a single person. The success or failure of the project thus depends on one individual," pointed out Indiresan. Tele-connectivity is no doubt important but it is not a substitute for physical connectivity, he added. Spending even one-third or one-fourth of the total budget for rural development on this aspect will go a long way in aiding the success of IT projects for the masses. However, lending a silver lining, K C Kajaria, a businessman, says "developments in the software industry may not have revolutionised the common man's life but installing computers at the railway counters and banks have to a large extent finished corruption in these fields."

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