The Hindu : Transfer IT benefits to rural masses: Kalam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 28, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Transfer IT benefits to rural masses: Kalam

By Our Staff Correspondent

The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, inaugurating the Mysore IT.Com 2002 in Mysore on Friday. The Karnataka Governor, T.N. Chaturvedi, and the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, the Minister for IT and Tourism, D.B. Inamdar, and the Minister for Cooperation, H. Vishwanath, are also seen.

MYSORE DEC. 27. The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, today emphasised the need for transferring the benefits of Information and Communication Technology to the rural masses.

Inaugurating the MysoreIT.Com 2002 amidst unprecedented security here, Dr. Kalam saw no reason for the organisers to merely emulate BangaloreIT.Com or HyderbadIT.Com. "You should have a unique brand-image for the event," he said and suggested a discussion on "Transfer of ICT to rural masses" during the four-day conference. Apart from suggesting IT players here to explore the possibility of specialisation in telemedicine, e-education, e-governance and e-tourism, Dr. Kalam gave a call for using knowledge power to create urban amenities in rural areas.

Envisioning a habitat design for improving the quality of life in rural areas, he said knowledge-powered rural development was essential for transforming India into a knowledge power. High bandwidth rural connectivity was the minimum requirement to take education, health care and economic dynamism to rural areas.

Dr. Kalam suggested the linking of a cluster of 20 to 30 villages with good roads and provide them with amenities such as schools, technology centres, electronic connectivity and so on. He envisaged rural models to share and augment service capabilities to cater to the IT enabled service demands from local and foreign, sources. Such models not only provided opportunity for rural economic development and prosperity but also helped stop movement of families to urban areas.

The President described the ICT as a "great leveller of society" providing unlimited opportunity for entrepreneurs who did not require huge funds as capital. "What they require is the capital of knowledge," he said.

An ICT enterprise did not even require to be based in a major city. Being a knowledge centre, which had a hoary heritage, Mysore had the potential to emerge as a new place on the world map of knowledge projects, he said.

Dr. Kalam called upon the organisers of MysoreIT.Com to focus on "innovation" as a knowledge product. "Use innovation as a knowledge product to generate wealth," said the President, underscoring the importance of generating wealth for the country.

Dr. Kalam regretted that IT was not effectively used to bring about transparency in Government.

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