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Information Technology and Social Good
By
N. Vittal
(Central Vigilance Commissioner, New Delhi)
Our country is like a snake whose head is in the 20th century and tail in the 17th century.
Being the second largest populated country in the world, we have areas of excellence and some
of the people are living in the age of high technology. Information technology is the most
exciting technology at the moment. At the same time, we also have 30% of our people who live
below the poverty line. Some people divide India into India and Bharat. India is exposed to the
external and western influences and talks in the modern idiom of technology. Bharat lives in
the villages, is poor and in some areas, as pointed out by Dr Amartya Sen, the Nobel
worse than even the poor African countries of the Sahel region.
Can information technology help to bridge this gap? In other words, can information technology
be used imaginatively to bring its benefit to the poorest of the poor and make life a little
better for all people in the country particularly those who are unemployed or who are poor or
who are sick? It was Kabir who pointed out "Bade hua to kya hua jaise pade kajoor panchi to
chaya nahi or phal alge ati door." What is the use of being big and tall like the Palmyra tree?
The fruit is far away and there is very little shade for the bird. In other words, for us
Indians, the acid test for information technology is not how it is helping the United States
or other developed countries to increase their velocity of business, bring a new dimension of
transacting business like in the digital economy and the Internet. The question is, what can
it do for our people, especially our poor people?
Here are some ideas. Our backwardness is because practically half our country is illiterate.
52% of our people are only literate. The national task force on information technology has
rightly highlighted the need for using computers in schools and use information technology
education. In fact, it is possible to put computers in every school and bring the benefit of
information technology so that we can overcome the problem of illiteracy. To make computer
literacy a serious proposition, the learning of computers should be made a compulsory integral
part of the regular education system. One great weakness of the Indian education system today
is that IT is not a part of the regular educational syllabus. As recommended by the task force,
this lacuna must be filled, by making IT a compulsory part of the syllabus in the 10th and
12th standards. There are about 75,000 high schools and 6,00,000 primary schools in the country. Our objective
must be to see that there are at least 20 computers in every high school and 5 computers in
every primary school. This will mean that we will require 45 lakh computers (15 lakh for high
schools and 30 lakh for the primary schools). The number of computers in India today may
around 23 lakh. We are talking about doubling this for our schools alone. Where are the
computers to come from? Where is the money?
One helpful fact about computers is that thanks to the rapid developments in technology, many
of them become obsolete very soon. So it is possible for us to appeal to NRIs and firms in
India and abroad to donate older machines to schools and allow them to be brought into the
country duty free and without any hassles at the Customs. So long as it is certified that
computers are meant for the schools, the customs should not unnecessarily delay or hold up the
lot in the airports and ports. In fact, this is the strategy China is said to be following.
They get old computers and they cannibalise them, so that the computers are not down for
of spare parts. The government has already announced that any investment made in computers
would be eligible for 10% depreciation in two years. This should massively help leasing
companies to come forward and make computers available on lease on very easy terms. Schools
can take these computers on lease and can charge reasonable fees from the students. The fees
will be a fraction of the fees charged by private computer training shops. In this way, the
schools can have access to computers. Incidentally this will give a boost to the assembly
manufacture of computers in the country and make its own positive contribution to the economy.
Another method would be to give income and sales tax incentives by providing deduction or set
off of the expenditure incurred by a taxpayer in providing computers to schools. The government
of India also can give excise concessions to the computers provided to the schools.
While these methods will be useful in making the hardware of computers physically available in
the schools, the most important issue is the content. So far as the content available on
Internet is concerned, the IT task force has also recommended how, for instance, the cable TV
companies may be encouraged to provide access to the internet. It should be possible for the
schools to make local arrangements with the cable TV companies so that they access the Internet
more easily. Another option is to use the PCO's and the telecom network. The task force has
already made recommendation by which the cost of accessing the Internet server will be reduced
substantially. Hence accessing the Internet would be a practical proposition, not a pipe dream.
But we must not forget that among the schools, hardly 5 or 10 percent will be in the English
Medium. The rest of the students study in the medium of Indian languages. Most of the content
available today is in English. We will therefore have to think of massive creation of content
in Indian language that can be accessed through the computers. We will have to undertake a
massive programme involving the private sector for putting on the computer whatever educational
material is today available on paper. This can be done by diverting the funds available under
the various employment generation schemes like the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, to engage unemployed
youth for loading this content in the computers. We will create in this process, lakhs of jobs
for the next at least three years or so.
The Members of Parliament local area development programme under which every Member of
Parliament gets one crore of rupees every year already covers providing computers in schools.
Yet another source of funds is the sheer inefficiency of the education departments at the
Centre and in the states. There was a recent report that many states including Gujarat and
Tamilnadu did not spend even a fraction of the funds allotted to them under certain programmes.
A simple decision that all budgetary savings from any head of expenses especially education
can be diverted for the massive national programme for computers in schools will make funds
available. There is another doubt as to, as almost all the teachers at primary school level
and high school level are not familiar with computers, how are we going to create the whole
cadre of IT teachers. Here, we should be able to draw on the private computer training
institutions, which can be given contract for providing this facility in schools. In fact, the
Navodaya Vidyalayas for computer literacy in their schools made use of the private sector. They
gave turnkey contracts to private parties whereby the private parties provided the computers
as well as teachers and took the responsibility for maintaining the computers. This was far
more successful than the cases where the teachers were to be trained first.
There is thus a tremendous business opportunity, which arises as a result of the above strategy. Incidentally, we would be satisfying the enlightened self-interest of the unemployed youth, the leasing companies, the private sector computer industry and so on. Well the above scheme may look attractive and nice, but who is going to implement it? We can think of two alternatives. One is to consciously promote a healthy competition among the different states or districts to see which district or state becomes the first 100 percent computer literate district or state in the country. This strategy will call for champions. A technology friendly Chief Minister like Shri Chandra Babu Naidu may be a rarity in Indian politics. However, definitely, it should be possible to find enough champions especially among the younger lot of civil servants who can take on this challenge. NGOs interested in education must be massively co-opted by them. Secondly, a dedicated group in the Prime Minister's Office, which can continuously monitor this activity at the national level, can coordinate this entire programme.
Locating this activity in the PMO sends the signal that this programme has the support of the
highest political executive.
The second important aspect for social good is creating employment. As we have seen above the
very process of creating content for education will throw up a lot of job opportunities. In
addition, new areas of employment can be created like medical transcription and bibliographic
database business. Prof Vishwanathan of INSDOC had assessed that we can create 3 - 30 lakh jobs
by using information technology in bibliographic database business. The third
important dimension is health. Today many poor people may not be able to go to even
district headquarters for medical facilities. However, if we are able to put computers and
telephones in the primary health centres and give them ISDN connectivity, it should be possible
for the doctors in the district headquarters to treat patients in the primary health.
Another problem with the primary health centres is that the doctors are unwilling to go to the
small primary health centres, and, many of them do not have adequate doctors. So even with
paramedical staff, it should be possible to give better quality of medical care through
telemedicine. The possibilities of using information technology for social good are endless. The only
limitation is our imagination.
Source: PRAJNA JOURNAL
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