Model e-Villages for bridging digital divide in North East India

CategoriesGoal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Knowledge & ResearchTags, , , ,

This project aims to connect remote tribal villages of North East India with ICT infrastructure to enhance the agriculture and education sectors by creating e-literacy among the community, specifically targeting farmers and students.

An e-village centreThe Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), and College of Horticulture and Forestry (CHF), Central Agricultural University, Arunachal Pradesh designed a model e-village project that would create computer infrastructure in the remote tribal areas of North East India. The basic objectives of designing and implementing this project was to promote e-literacy in the village community, especially the youth, and to bring Information Communication Technologies (ICT) closer to farmers for improving their agricultural methods and output.

The pilot project ran from June 2008 to March 2011. Ten villages of the East Siang District of Arunachal Pradesh were selected for the pilot. With the inauguration of the project, ten e-village centres were set up, which were equipped with computers, printers, scanners, wireless Internet connection (EVDO) and DTH (Direct-to-home) TV. A mini library with publications on agriculture and allied sectors was also established.

The project has been successful in creating e-literacy and capacity building in the community by using ICT for improving their livelihood and education. During its pilot, 54 training programmes were conducted that benefited 1640 farmers. Seven community e-awareness programmes conducted through e-village centres also benefited more than 800 students. This project also helped in disseminating multilingual content from the India Development Gateway (InDG) portal that related to agriculture, health, primary education etc.

The success of the project indicated a strong case for replication in various remote areas of India. Although the pilot of the project is over, a scale up proposal has already been submitted to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, through C-DAC for approval.

This case study was published in April 2012.

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