Information needs of rural people and community information centres
K.A. Raju · DR-NTU (Nanyang Technological University) · 1999
In India, 74% of its population lives in villages. Also 300 million people are estimated to be below the poverty line and they mostly live in the rural areas. Inspite of the successive Five Year Plans and enormous inputs that go in the name of alleviation of poverty, poverty has not shown any signs of reduction. Many advocate people's participation, infrastructure development, creation of awareness and access to 'productive resources etc. as possible solutions to improve the productivity of the rural people and thereby the reduction in poverty. The paper outlines the various needs of rural people and identifies those information needs that would improve the quality of life and sustain it. In the light of the processes that are leading to the democratic decentralisation to empower the local people to increase their participation in planning and development, the kind of activities the local governments at various levels are scheduled to take up, are outlined. Here the dimension of 'Right to Information' is discussed. The role of Community Information Centres in fulfilling the articulated needs of the village community and how these centres can be conceived as dynamic institutions, integrating information generated at various levels, transforming into readily usable material, and the various databases to be developed depending upon the needs of the rural community are discussed. In view of the advances that are taking place in the information and communication technologies, the paper suggests the need to bring this communication revolution to the doorsteps of the people. There is a move to extend the communication facilities under the new Action Plan of the IT Task Force upto village level. Under this Action Plan, the 'last mile' is also to be connected and Community Information Centres are to work as not only as a STD Booths but also as a Telecottages or Information Kiosks. Then there is a possibility that information available on the super highway would also be made available in a repackaged format in an intelligible and usable format to the rural people. l ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library