Impact of ICT in Smalltowns in India: A Case of Public Access to Internet
Balwant Singh Mehta, Megha Shree · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 2015
Over the period, number of cybercafés has shrunk in urban India and increased in towns in India. Consequently, people in towns have started recognising the importance of cybercafés and accessing information on education, income and welfare programmes from such public access centres. In this context, it is essential to understand from the policy perspective that whether these cybercafés are improving the well being of the masses living in towns and rural areas. The study based on two midsize towns, Firozabad and Bhadohi in India find that majority of cybercafé users belonged to upper social group, highly qualified, young male and students. They were regular users and visit cybercafés for gathering information relate to mainly education and employment. They are able to achieve their life-goals but challenges of slow internet speed, limited power availability, lack of enough computers and space at cybercafés limits its usage.