Technology is the new non-government organisation in rural India

The hinterland was till recently alien territory for most of the entrepreneurial breed.

Not-for-profit bodies and the government, through certain schemes, were the only ones who had a tenuous presence in many villages. In the last few years, that has certainly changed.
Educated and, in several instances, city-bred entrepreneurs have turned their eyes to their rural brethren.

While we lack the benefit of long-term experience, it can safely be said many of these start-ups are effecting a noticeable change. Pivotal to this is what many (somewhat erroneously) believe is a bugbear for the unlettered: technology.

From using mobile phones to receive information on crops and weather, to installing solar panels to light up their homes, rustic folk are discovering the edifying power of technology.

So, are technology and the minds behind it in some sense emulating non-governmental organisations in their efforts to better lives in villages? Quite a few tend to think so.

Anil Gupta, professor, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, says many start-ups are emerging to supplement the efforts of social movements.

“What is remarkable is that out of 77 licences for over 60 technologies that NIF (National Innovation Foundation) and the Honey Bee network facilitated over the last 15 years on behalf of grassroots innovators, majority are (from) small scale entrepreneurs. None is an NGO.” Gupta has helped incubate many a social enterprise through his Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (Gian), besides NIF and Honey Bee.

Ratnesh Yadav, co-founder and COO, Husk Power Systems, believes technology has to certainly play a role in progress in villages. HPS has about 70 power plants, most of them in interior Bihar, which burn rice husk to produce gas which is then fed into a generator to create power.

Irfan Alam’s SammaaN Foundation works with cycle rickshaw riders in cities in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to help make them organised and earn more. But now it is venturing into providing low-cost healthcare in rural terrain. Alam notes, “In the last five years or so, technology has made social enterprise more efficient.”

He adds that even NGOs have adopted technology to better serve their target groups.

Kishore Moghe, group head, Seva Sahayog Foundation, concurs with him. “Many NGOs are supplying solar lights to advasi villages.”

Doon School and St Stephen’s alumnus Bunker Roy, whose Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, is probably the only one of its ilk to enroll only illiterates, says NGOs must not be totally dependent on technology.

Barefoot trains women from villages across the world that don’t have electricity to become solar engineers.

Notwithstanding the pitfalls of modern technological advances, they have opened up hitherto unheard-of possibilities. Meera Devi, a 41-year-old mother of three from Raipuria, a village in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, is at Barefoot and is confident of the training.

“When I go back to the village I will be using what I learnt here to introduce solar chargers and lanterns to the people there,” she says.

Moghe is of the view technology has acted as a great leveller.
Iffco Kisan Sanchar (IKSL) has a customer base of 80 lakh farmers, to whom it sends five free voice messages everyday on crops, weather, livestock and the like. It also extends to them a free helpline service.

“Mobile phones have been a game-changer. Earlier radio was their (villagers’) only exposure to technology. Now I see a lady selling eggs or bangles in a village taking out a phone from the folds of her saree when her inventory is not worth more than Rs 100,” Iffco Kisan Sanchar’s founder Ranjan Sharma said.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, at the end of January, the number of rural mobile subscribers rose 3.2% from a month earlier to 25.89 crore.

Social entrepreneurs are not content with just an altruistic motive, they look for a viable business plan.

“Unless you are making money, you’ll spread only to a few villages. You’ll last only till your grant lasts,” adds Sharma. In an earlier conversation with DNA Money he stated that if IKSL were an NGO it wouldn’t be making any money.

Even Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, and incubator of several enterprises, stresses upon the importance of scale. “Innovation (in villages) is done mostly by start-ups but it can be scaled up only by big businesses.” ITC’s e-choupal is a case in point and Reuters Market Light offers services similar to IKSL’s.