An international consortium, including Indian and American companies as well as the World Bank, is planning to establish thousands of rural Internet centers in India to bring government, banking and education services to isolated villages, the World Bank press review reports.
The project, announced Thursday, is intended to bring Internet-based services to individuals who must often travel long distances to conduct banking or business with the government.
The goal is to serve rural villages with populations of more than 5.000. Ultimately the plan calls for centers or kiosks in 5.000 villages in the state of Karnataka; Bangalore, the Indian high-technology center, is the capital of Karnataka.
The project, subsidized by the state government, will include money to train residents in computer skills. The centers, connected to the Internet by either land lines or satellite links, are each to consist of 5 to 10 inexpensive ”thin clients,” simple computer displays that are more rugged and less expensive than personal computers.
The project will begin with a technical demonstration in 4 villages, and then be extended to 20 others, according to Andi Dervishi, an investment officer at the Global Information and Communication Technologies division of the World Bank.
He said the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank would act initially as a non-financial partner but was hoping to be able to finance the growth of the project if the early trials go well.
While the plan is to erect computer kiosks, the focus of the project is not to deliver technology itself – but the education, banking, healthcare and legal services that villagers crave.
The involvement of ICICI is vital to breaking up usurious local money lending practices, where farmers can be charged interest rates of 4 percent a month for loans on fertilizer or seed.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has channeled 3 million US dollar to Sri Lanka for its e-society development initiative fund, according to official Daily News. The fund will provide grants under two schemes called community granting scheme and partnership granting scheme.
– Although Sri Lanka has a 90 percent literacy rate, there were poor in their IT literacy and latest reports say IT literacy in Sri Lanka is 9,8 percent, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said.
Under the community granting scheme, funds will be directly distributed to the community for their information and communications technology (ICT) implementations.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
