Space Technology for the
Bottom of the Pyramids

 

India occupies 2.4% of the world’s land area and supports over 17.5% of the world’s population. It has more arable land area than any country except for the United States, and more water area than any country except for Canada and the United States. Life in India, therefore, revolves mostly around agriculture and allied activities in small villages, where the overwhelming majority of Indians live. As per the 2001 census, 72.2% of the population lives in about 638,000 villages and the remaining 27.8% in more than 5,100 towns and over 380 urban agglomerations. Most of these villages still remain isolated and aloof from development. The basic needs of life such as education, basic health care and appropriate sanitation are even now a distant vision.

Lack of empowerment of individuals in these villages due to inaccessibility of timely information is one of the primary issues hindering the growth rate. People in these areas are not well connected to the other parts of the world. They have their separate lives. This is an obstacle in the path of development. To tackle this problem head on, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Development Alternatives (DA) joined hands in the year 2006, with the objective of upliftment of rural India (or rather, real India) and national development through services and information. They created the network now known as the DA-ISRO-VRC network.
In the name DA-ISRO-VRC, let’s take a look at DA first. The Development Alternatives Group comprises Development Alternatives (DA) and its associate organisations across India: Technology and Action for Rural Advancement (TARA), TARAhaat Information and Marketing Services Ltd, TARA Nirman Kendra and Decentralised Energy Systems India Ltd. The DA Group - a pioneer sustainable development enterprise - was established in 1983 as a not for profit research, development and action organisation. It has been recognised by the Ministry of Science and Technology as a scientific research institute.

Over the years, the DA Group has taken up several initiatives and networks at the field level in different parts of India. The partnerships established with over 500 NGOs and rural entrepreneurs across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Maharashtra will be of particular interest to the Village Resource Centre (VRC) programme.

TARAhaat is India’s premiere social enterprise, established in 2000. It is dedicated to bridging the huge divide between rural communities and mainstream economy. It provides rural people access to information and livelihood opportunities comparable to those available in urban India. A lot of services are offered through TARAkendras, DA’s community knowledge cum business centres.

ISRO, as we all know, is Indian Space Research Organisation. Since its formation, the Department of Space/ISRO has evolved many useful applications emanating from space technology. It has become largely self-reliant with the capability to design and build satellites for providing space services and to launch those using indigenously designed and developed launch vehicles. ISRO has also been a champion in demonstrating the use of space technology for societal good and has piloted several socially relevant space application projects, including the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE), the Training and Development Communication Channel (TDCC) and the Jhabua Development Communi-cations Project (JDCP).

What is VRC?

In February 2007, TARAhaat and DA jointly initiated a programme called Village Resource Centre (VRC) with the collaboration with ISRO. The VRC programme is meant to extend the benefits of space technology directly to the communities at the grassroots level. This satellite-based unique video conferencing service takes education, information and several other services to people living in remote areas of India. This VRC network handles both dynamic and generic information so as to empower the rural communities through spatial information infrastructure. Its initial programmes were mainly targeted at unemployed educated youth. But today, approximately 500 different programmes on different topics have been telecast, varying from medical counselling, computer education, livelihood and self employment, art and craft, agriculture, personality development, sales and marketing, social awareness, career counseling, e-governance, etc.

The DA-ISRO-VRC network became operational in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Immediately after the successful trial of a network of 13 VRCs, a team from DA and TARAhaat started the programme delivery. The network that started with only four centres – Orchha, Tarichar, Niwari and Lalitpur – has now around 40 centres in its list. The credit for this remarkable achievement goes to the smooth technology service and extremely informative, participative and popular programmes running six days a week.

This network has fixed timings, from 10:30 in the morning to 1:00 in the afternoon. It also helps in regular participation, as interested participants make themselves available at a particular time. Each day has a fixed special programme. For example, Mondays are reserved for enhancing communication skills. On Tuesdays a popular quiz-based game show is organised. In the same way, Wednesdays are reserved for identifying local NGOs and social workers who are trying to make a difference in their areas and encouraging them. Thursdays are dedicated to online health advisory. This programme is delivered with the support of Era Medical College, Lucknow. Friday is kept for helping out farmers through a programme on agriculture with the support of Narendra Dev Agriculture University and Technology (NDUAT), Faizabad. After a week’s hectic schedule, Saturday is set for entertainment, where programmes encouraging people to showcase their talents are organised. This programme draws a large number of enthusiastic participants who display their abilities with great enthusiasm, as they know that they are reaching out to a big audience. These programs have a large impact on the lives of the participants.

Ratan from Hisua says, ‘I am grateful to ISRO and DA for making such useful information available to us at our doorsteps. I want to promote these programmes in nearby villages also.’

‘The knowledge programme is our favourite as it adds new meaning to entertainment,’ say the children of Duncan Hospital, Raxaul.

‘The Saturday programme on entertainment is the most interesting. It has provided me with the opportunity to showcase my talent to the rest of the world’, says Balchand Verma from Orchha, Madhya Pradesh.

The objectives of the network are providing enhanced livelihood opportunities, information on price, markets, pests, diseases, livestock, government schemes, job opportunities, e-governance related information, access to space-based information on land, water, soil, etc., tele-education and tele-healthcare services, and advisories on agriculture, land and water management.

These VRCs have become a single window delivery mechanism for tele-education, tele-medicine, natural resources data, agricultural advisories, land and water resources advisories, interactive farmer’s advisories and weather advisories.

Tele-education

Tele-education focuses on building indigenous skill and imparting training and capacity building including formal, non-formal and adult education. As community centric learning centres, VRCs aim to bring access to knowledge at the villager’s doorstep.

Tele-medicine

The tele-medicine system consists of customised medical software integrated with computer hardware, along with medical diagnostic instruments connected to the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) at each location. Generally, the medical record/history of the patients is sent to specialist doctors who, in turn, study and provide diagnoses and treatments through videoconferencing with the patients. Tele-medicine helps patients in rural areas to avail of timely consultations of specialist doctors without going through the ordeal of travelling over long distances. To bring the services of large/specialty hospitals and expert doctors closer, the VRCs provide connectivity to these centres.

Land and Water Resources Advisories

VRCs provide spatial information on various themes such as land use/land cover, soil, groundwater prospects, and further enable the farmers to get query based decision support.Geographic Information System (GIS) databases comprising thematic layers, road network and drainage network are also available. A simple software package is installed to access and avail of the natural resource information and related advisories, enabling farmers to get online decision support.

Interactive Farmer’s Advisory Services/Tele-agriculture

VRC enables online interactions between the local farmers and agriculture scientists working at various scientific institutions. The advisory service covers a wide range of subjects starting from alternate cropping systems, optimisation of agricultural inputs, seeds, water, fertilisers, insecticides, pesticides and producer-oriented marketing opportunities. Community centred advisories on soil and water conservation and participatory watershed management, information on market/price, pests and diseases, etc., are also available. Farmers/villagers of one VRC can interact with their counterparts in other VRCs on crops, pesticides, water harvesting, etc.

Weather Forecast

Apart from these, a week-long weather forecast for respective regions and agro-meteorological advisories are also available.
This DA-ISRO-VRC network helps link the population that is living at the bottom of pyramids to the outside world through space technology. It is a feeling of great pleasure to improve and enrich the lives of these disconnected individuals where ‘the world is really flat’ and ends at the horizon. q

Pragya Tiwari
ptiwari@tarahaat.com