Has BharatNet fulfilled its end task of providing functional internet?
This article was first published in the Mint newspaper on April 20, 2016.
Dozens of schemes, armies of officials to implement them, and millions of beneficiaries across the country. The government’s multiple initiatives to help the needy are commendable, but do they always reach their target audience?
Right now, an experiment is on. Of the 150 rural or semi-rural locations across 80 districts in 22 states where we work, we have selected 25 locations to focus on delivery of entitlements.
As I have shared through columns earlier, we work in rural India, and our work entails providing people with connectivity, access to information and digital services, and helping them realize their rights and avail themselves of their entitlements.
The 25 selected locations are in five districts—Barmer in Rajasthan, Tehri in Uttarakhand, West Champaran in Bihar, Ranchi in Jharkhand and Guna in Madhya Pradesh.
We all know that in villages, people depend on government schemes such as the Indira Awaas Yojana, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Kaushal Vikas Yojana and the Jan-Dhan Yojana, or even institutional programmes like midday meals in schools. As soon as a new scheme or entitlement is announced, information about it starts to flow from the centre to the state to the district to the block office to the panchayat.
As we learnt from our study of 25 centres that cater to 125 panchayats, there is a serious need for an institutionalized mechanism wherein people get information about their rights and entitlements, not as a mere formality but in a manner that enables practical utilization of that information.
When we started working on the ground for outreach, awareness and clearing the way for delivery of entitlements, we realized there were five kinds of gaps in information flow: people didn’t know about their rights and entitlements; they only had minimal information about their rights/entitlements, but no details; some had detailed information about the scheme but did not know how to avail themselves of the benefits; even if they knew about the scheme and the process of availing of benefits under it, the benefits never reached them; and those who got the benefits often never received their full entitlements.
Also, several baseline surveys in these five backward districts show only 6% of the population felt they received valid and reliable information from panchayats. Seventy-three per cent found getting information about their entitlement the most difficult part of availing themselves of benefits.
In this hierarchy of information consumption, it was observed that without the involvement of an information middleman, dissemination of information or translation of information into benefits does not happen. This means that if I am a villager and want to go to the block office, it is almost impossible for me to directly access the block office, fill the form and avail of the entitlement without help from a third person.
If I’m lucky, the third person could be a relative who’s willing to help me. But usually, it is some stranger who gets the work done.
In these villages in the past two years, we have been working as middlemen, ensuring delivery of entitlements. We campaigned in more than 100 villages and registered 48,586 beneficiaries in 2015 alone. Out of these, 40,820 people have benefited under schemes related to education, health, social security, financial inclusion, livelihood and employment, and institutional schemes.
Yet, when it comes to MGNREGS, an ambitious scheme that aims to provide rural jobs, check rural-urban migration and reduce poverty, we found the situation in West Champaran far from ideal. Payments worth Rs.3 crore for over a thousand people were pending for over two years.
When our team found out about this, we intimated the officials concerned to expedite the process. We even tallied the workers’ attendance—uploaded on the MGNREGS website—with the payments made and found several discrepancies.
This clearly proves that for efficient delivery of entitlements, a recognized position of an information officer or information agent or an accountable information provider at the village level is important. This will not only ensure uniform dissemination of information from the central government to the people, but also create thousands of jobs.
Over the years, we’ve seen information and communication technology solutions and digital tools bridging the information gap. And we have used them to make marginalized and underserved communities more informed about their rights and entitlements. Today, thanks to basic digital literacy, people in various parts of rural India are able to access information on their own, take printouts in regional languages to share the information with other villagers or to maintain their personal records. Videos and community radio too have been successful in creating awareness.
Imagine how easy it would be for households to avail of benefits if there was at least one digitally literate member in each family!
With about 70% of the population (more than 830 million people) living in rural areas and dependent on government schemes, there is an immediate need to ensure that entitlements make it across the last mile. Easy and ready access to information is the key that allows a citizen to enter a space where he or she can participate in governance and be involved in decision-making.
This will start a cycle of sorts: if a citizen has access to information, the government would become more accountable and the citizen will want to have a role in decision-making.
Osama Manzar is founder-director of the Digital Empowerment Foundation and chair of the Manthan and mBillionth awards. He is co-author of NetCh@kra–15 Years of Internet in India and Internet Economy of India.
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