I NSIGHT
Saga of a rural Internet entrepreneur Just a decade ago, the advent of Internet heralded a discernibly new era of human development ‘through information’. Over the years, this ‘Information Superhighway’, has changed dramatically, the way people live and work. Born out of complex computer-codes, algorithms and Boolean logic, Internet has taken strides far beyond the guarded echelon of research labs, to reach out to every nook and corner of earth. Although, this global marathon of Internet is still in its warm-up phase, people around the world are celebrating its grand victory, by committing themselves to join the race in it’s ‘last-mile-run’. Among such Internet-inspired persons, who are trying to harness the immense potentiality of this formidable IT tool, and take e-revolution to the masses — one name is ‘Bhupinder Singh’. He lives in a remote village ‘Almora’ in the hill-state of Uttaranchal in Northern India. Almost five years back, this person undertook a basic computer application course in Almora and purchased a home PC with the intention to open up his own training centre. Initially, he set up the centre in his village and used to train students of surrounding localities. After about a year, when he came to know about Internet and the array of services that can be provided through it - he decided to open up an Internet kiosk by the name – ‘Surya Cyber Café’, in his shop at Kosi ‘bazaar’. Although, he was not sure of the business volume it could generate, he started off with a hope to make a break-through. Since Bhupenderji has long been a social worker and runs an organisation ‘Uttaranchal Yuva Kalyan Vikas Samiti’, making fat profit out of his computer was never his priority. He was more concerned about making people around him aware about this new technology.
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To spread awareness among rural masses, he has arranged a number of ‘Internet Demonstration Camps’ in the surrounding villages. In these camps, villagers were enlightened on how to use e-mails to sendand-receive letters from relatives, get news and information, know about career opportunities , job openings, and check balance in their SBI savings account. Bhupinderji recollects one instance when he met two village women, who had their personal e-mail IDs. Although they never used their e-mails, they were curious to check e-mails from their husbands who were posted in Kashmir. Bhupinderji hopes that, like those two women, one day every villager in his locality will have his/her own e-mail ID. Since Bhupinderji began his Internet venture, he has experimented with all kinds of connectivity options in order to provide better services to his customers. Earlier, in the year 1998, there was the lone option of a ‘dial-up connection’ to hook to the ‘Net’. With an old and low capacity telephone exchange in his locality, he used to face a lot of trouble in getting connected. Often telephone lines remained out-of-order and connections used to fail repeatedly in between surfing hours. Bhupinderji brought the issue to the notice of SDO, Almora district and GM of ‘Almora Telecom Authority’. Both, assured him of the earliest up-gradation of Kosi exchange. Bhupenderji also experimented with the WLL-based Internet connection. Though WLL provided a reasonably good speed but intermittent connection-snags forced Bhupenderji to shift back to the dial-up connection. With the new and upgraded telephone exchange in place, he is now quite satisfied with the uninterrupted connectivity but ‘speed’ still remains an issue. Over the years, since Bhupenderji started his cyber café, he has reduced the surfing
charges from as high as Rs 45 an hour to the present Rs 30 an hour. According to him, such reduction in charges has been possible largely due to slash in basic telephone charges over the past few years. Customers who need to send only e-mails, he charges on the per mail basis at the rate of Rs 5. His customers mainly comprise of tourists, local students, sales persons of various FMCG companies and army personnel posted in the region. Railway booking and enquiry is another popular service that he provides to his customers. According to Bhupenderji, this is the second-most popular service that his customers avail, ranking right behind the conspicuous ‘e-mail’ service. According to Bhupenderji, the proliferation of Internet and its increased use in bridging the digital-divide is possible, only when we go way ahead of our present 33 percent rural-telecom penetration. He clearly points to the absence of adequate telephony and telecommunication facility as the biggest stumbling block in spear heading the e-Revolution throughout the country. However, he holds high hopes for the future and believes that in the years ahead, the situation would change for better and a large section of the hitherto ‘e-alienated’ rural mass of this country would be ushered into an “e-Enlightened” tomorrow. (Rs 45 = US $1) Dipanjan Banerjee dipanjan@csdms.org, CSDMS i4d | February 2005