Assignment: Digital Inclusion Report

A report submitted to

Professor Ajit Kanitkar

Professor Sanjiv Phansalkar
Professor Nirmalya Choudhury

In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course

ISPE

By

177113 MENGHANI LAKHAN MAHESH

On
26-02-2018
Digital Inclusion:

We visited a village known as Bhana (Hindi: भाणा) which is situated near Rajasamand lake
and comes under Kankroli tehsil of Rajasamand district of Rajasthan state. The village is only
5 kilometres away from nearby urban town i.e. Kankroli and therefore the villagers have fair
amount of frequency going to the town daily for different means.

As the government of India is promoting Digital India campaign to increase the usage of digital
channels like usage of computers, internet and mobile phones, etc. to use different services
available online. The villagers of Bhana have the primary occupation of agriculture only; they
use very less of the devices mentioned above and services. The factors for low usage of these
services are:

1. Unreliable network services: The available network providers in the village

Vodafone, Airtel, Jio, BSNL, and Idea. Almost all of the users who have subscribed to
these networks use primarily prepaid connections. The network providers fail to
provide a consistent and reliable network which can, in turn, provide a data network to
run internet services on mobile phones. Also, BSNL doesn’t have any exchange centre
in the village. Therefore, for any new broadband connection, people might need to ask
the nearest exchange which is available in Kankroli.
2. No data network in some of the village areas: There is no data network available at
all in some of the areas in the village, and if you are lucky enough to get the data
network, the speed will be very less and bare enough to surf some of the basic websites
like Google, and WhatsApp. There will be not enough downloading speeds what can
download bigger files. Also, there are the only couple of BSNL broadband users who
run their business purposes.
3. A negligible number of computer owners: There are only 5 – 10 villagers who own
computers at their homes or shops. Now, these people are affluent enough to buy
computer systems for their respective purposes. Villagers who used computers in their
shops runs E-Mitra centres in the village. There are a couple of E-Mitra centres in total
which provides many governments and bank services to the people who doesn’t know
how to use these services.
 4. Budget mobile phones: Most of the villagers use budget bar phones or feature phones
which will suit their basic requirements and the financial constraints. All these
5. Lack of interest to explore new ways of doing things: Villagers are least interested
in finding new ways of doing traditional things. For example, some people still prefer
to go bank to withdraw money which they earn from the MNREGA scheme. Almost
all people have enrolled for Aadhar due to various government schemes but joining
Aadhar with the government services is not done properly because most people are
either not aware of it or don’t want to explore new methods for fulfilling scheme
criteria. One major factor also comes from their occupation. Most of the people are
living on earing from withering farms or by labouring into the farms which are owned
by other farmers. Due to the type of their occupation which demands most of their
daytime, they remain with very little interest in learning new things.
6. Illiteracy: Almost all working people in the village have very low literacy rate due to
various factors, for instance, poverty, no interest in education, no proper guidance from
parents, and helping parents in earnings. Illiteracy cuts all the possibilities of reading
and writing which leads to the incapability of using digital products and services. Due
to this, the villagers fail to understand the benefits from using the digital services and
avoid using them as much as possible, or they also depend upon nearby E-Mitra centres
which provide government and banking related services in exchange of pre-decide
monitory charges.

Focused Group Discussion:

After observing a focused discussion group which comprises of 4 males and four females of
the village, I observed that people are well equipped with basic skills like general internet skills,
mobile phone skills (only limited to phone, WhatsApp, chrome with some sites like Google,
Facebook and Wikipedia in some rare cases). A couple of housewives thinks that these skills
are essential to get knowledge for their children. Three men out of the group acknowledged
that they have downloaded and streamed some videos online. Also, they were able to use
WhatsApp video call functionality to talk to their relatives.

These activities which require high-speed internet has to be done by going out of the village
because the data network from either service provider is consistent. People use these
functionalities when they go out for the work, or sometimes they leave their houses to get a
proper range of the internet.

Electricity:

The village is 100% electrified, and every one has an electric meter installed in their house or
shop. People use various electric and electronic equipment like TV, Iron, CFLs, fans, etc. They
also charge their mobile phones and doesn’t require any external source to use their gadgets.
There were no signs of solar power panels installed anywhere in the village, and same was
confirmed by the focused group itself when asked.