Monday, October 11, 2010

Bridge the gap between urban cities & rural India

Only Indian language computing can bridge the gap between urban cities & rural India

For last 2 decades++, urban citizens from all the categories have been using & enjoying fruits of IT and ITES. Speed is increasing day by day, month after month & year after year.

However, IT penetration (in terms of buying IT, in terms of using IT, in terms of enjoying fruits & in turn becoming smart, effective, productive & meaningful person) is still not happening the way it is happening in China, in Russia, in US, in Europe and/or in UK.

Reason(s)

There could be many.

My own reading is linguistic gap is still not bridged by hardware firms by providing various linguistic hardware products, by software firms by not providing large number Desk Top, Web based & mobile based applications. Above all, by service providers by not offering them linguistic services based on IT.

Still IT is happening in English. It is not happening in majority of official languages spoken & understood by masses.

Everyone is talking about next big thing is going to happen in rural India. How?

Today when I visualize fellow citizens living in rural India and trying to map their 24 hours life mechanism, I do not see IT over there.

Having said this, they do use large number of mobile phones, but only for talking and not for applications. Applications are still running in English language. They cannot compose & send text messages. Mobile numerical pads are in English.
Schools are still not riding the horse of IT.
Various businesses that happen all across rural India, they are not using IT.
Transport systems used by rural Indian’s, they are not using IT.
Education is not using effective use of IT.
Medicine is not using effective use of IT.
Agriculture (one of the largest business that happens in India) is not using the power of IT.

In turn, I see & visualize great business potential. I can call it business potential if addressed else this large community will be left from mainstream. In turn, India becoming largest power is going to be dream. Indian citizens becoming largest consumers is going to be dream.

Today these large consumers are not able to buy train tickets, air tickets, inter state and/or within state bus tickets using PC + web/mobile. Same situation for private transport.
Large numbers of students are not able to learn their first standard to 10th standard education using web based systems and when everyone knows there is great shortage of schools & infrastructure. Above all non-availability of good teachers.
Large number of agricultural farmers are still not benefiting from IT and ITES in terms of what products they can sow, how, when, etc.
Large numbers of homemakers are not able to do home accounting in turn income/expenses, they still have to do it manually.
Health services, insurance, etc. are still happening in traditional way rather than using IT and ITES.
Various taxes that they have to pay all across the life span, they have to still invest their valuable & productive time in person by visiting many offices. In turn, productivity is going haywire and time is wasted.

Today there is a great need for developing & designing dozens of hardware products, applications, etc. But no one is concerned.

And because of that, all the projections & marketing plans, may fail if this gap is not addressed by everyone.

My own reading is,

Top 1000 software companies from India as well as from globe, I do not see & read anything happening on their respective web sites/portals.
i do not see top 100 medical companies from India and from globe concern about rural India consumer.
I do not see that Indian railways, Indian airlines, private airlines, State transport system, Income tax department, Indian insurance companies, Private insurance companies, etc. etc. are interested to grab this huge customer base.

And that too when Modular InfoTech as a linguistic company is ready to offer multilingual products & tools to all these companies to grab the business.



(Thoughts mentioned in above article are writer’s sole thoughts. You may agree, You may not. You can be connected with writer, Mr. Phadke Subodhkumar Narayan via email and his email ID is phadke@modular-infotech.com . Writer is associated with Modular InfoTech and writing is his passion apart from many activities that he do in his personal as well as professional life)

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