Promises and Performances of ICTs in Rural India: A SWOT Analysis

ICT or Information Communication Technology ordinarily refers to computer based technology and telecommunications. Though it has been passed sixty nine years since independence, the substantial socio-economic development gained by India is not equally distributed to all sections of society. Some sections, like rural, tribal and remote areas can not keep pace with urban areas in development. To assure basic needs of the villagers by generating gainful employment, improving the socio-economic infrastructure for rural areas, to safeguard and improve fertility of land and other resources, lots of programmes and projects had been launched in India since independence. But now-a-days, when there is a huge hype regarding achieving sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ICTs can play an important role in facilitating these socio-economic capabilities and can able enable the villagers to access various services regarding health, education, employment, Government services etc. Thus ICT has been given an immense responsibility to bridge the gap between rural India and urban India. Especially recently Government has focussed on improving ICT very much. Digital India programme is the most eligible example of it. The Human Resource Development (HRD) minister recently launch e-pathshala app where the students, parents and teachers can access study materials online. There are many newly launched mobile apps like Government e-Procurement System of NIC (GeNIC), Co-operative Core Banking Solution (CCBS), to know everything about hospitals in Government sectors (e-hospital), Knowledge Management System (e-Office) etc. Thus e-governance has been gaining importance day by day.

The present paper focuses on the scope of ICT in Rural Development, the opportunities and challenges that can come along. The paper has also discussed about expected role of ICT in rural development, to find out the extent to which ICT has contributed towards India's rural development and how ICT sector helps to build national and regional internet backbones by enabling policies for telecommunications.