Internet revolution has bypassed rural India with less than half a per cent of families having the facility at home as against 6 per cent in cities, reveals a government survey.
“At all India level only about 0.4 per cent of rural households had access to Internet at home as compared to about 6 per cent of urban households,” said the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report on expenditure in 2009-10.
Reflecting the digital divide in India, the study said just 3.5 households per 1,000 families, had access to Internet services at home in rural areas in the year.
However, in urban areas, Internet connectivity was much better in 2009-10 as 59.5 families out of every 1000 households had the facility at home.
Among the major States, Maharashtra was on top with the 104 out of 1,000 families had Internet in cities, followed by Kerala and Himachal Pradesh at 95 each and Haryana at 81.5.
The penetration of digital services was highest in rural areas in Goa with 50 out of 1,000 households having Internet connection. Kerala came next with 34 families having such a facility at home.
Among the hilly States, Arunachal Pradesh had the best reach of the Internet service in rural areas with 19 out of 1,000 households have such facility at home, followed by Himachal Pradesh at 16.
The study further states that among the major states, Kerala had by far the highest proportion of households with Internet access in the rural areas at 3 per cent followed by Himachal Pradesh at 2 per cent.
In cities, Maharashtra reported the highest percentage of household having access to Internet connection (10 per cent) followed closely by Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana.
Keywords: Internet revolution, digital divide, rural-urban divide, NSSO
Dear Editor:China leads in total number of people who can access the internet. Latest stats reveal China has about 510 million users. As a percentage of their population this is close to about 50%. The US comes next with 265 million users out of a population of about 300 million people. India has an active base of about 121 million users or roughly 12% of its population. In terms of penetration the UK, Japan, German and Korea are the big four, averaging about 80%. But the bigger question to answer is whether the penetration ratio or the number of active users has any direct correlation to poverty or increase in productivity.Other than that this stat is useful only for the ISP's, telecom companies and equipment manufacturers.
It is because of lack of the language requirement, the way of life synchornised with nature, cinematic influence , and of course inclination , and economical and financial proximaty, and many more like this and mainly mind set up of money making with least stain. If our villages have been training in this internet field it requires unbiassed youngsters to take the matter to the village folk which will be least welcome for want of language. Hence it is destined to have slow progress , of course the propagator will not take advantage of innocence of village folk i mean technical innocence for which govt should have some encouraging procedures through staff hailing from deep villages an incentive plan at their post retirement period so that the IT reaches the gram.
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