Tapping the potential of Technology - From wheat to Aashirvaad

India, the largest democracy in the world, held its 14th Lok Sabha elections in 2004. Of the 675 million registered voters from the 1 billion strong nation, a whopping 378 million exercised their franchise. Despite this overwhelming turnout, thee election results were declared within a span of 24 hours. Thanks to the technology revolution in India. Every government in the past decade has not lost an opportunity (despite the lack of development in other sectors) to tap the IT potential that is available in abundance - the Indian brain power. Examples of the same are e-governance, online Railway tickets reservation (book a train ticket was a nightmare until 5 years back and required planning), and paying electricity bills online.
The reason I mentioned technology is because of the article in India Today about how it has revolutionised the agri-business in rural India.
V reminded me to read this week's edition of India Today. On the front cover is Yogi Deveshwar, ITC chairman. I was very impressed about the concept of e-choupal when I heard it for the first time a few weeks back (more of an up close and personal version).

the e-choupal redefines choupal, the hindi word for village square where elders meet to matters of importance. the all important matter letter in the word is "e". It stands for a computer with an Internet connection for farmers to gather around and interact not just among themseleves but with people anywhere in the country.It begins with ITC installing a computer with solar charged batteries for power and a VSAT Internet connection in selected villages. The computer's functioning is freed from the notorious power and telecom facilities at the village level.

Its achievement - 5050 choupals, 29,500 villages, 3.1 million farmers.
Ambition - to reach 1,00,000 villages, 10 million farmers by 2010.

--from India Today

To me, this initiative by itself is a big deal. Selling technology to the uneducated and gaining the confidence of the farmers on a machine (a computer) that they would generally look at with awe only from a distance. The real potential of India lies in the villages where more than 60% of the population lives. Educating farmers and making Internet connection accessible to them and other information in their local language is an appreciable deed.
Let me explain what this initiative is all about in a few words. ITC sets up one e-choupal for a number of villages and appoints a sanchalak (the person that operates the computer). The farmers then approach the sanchalak for information such as weather forecast and what would be the right time to sow a crop, prices in the markets etc. ITC steps in by selling the concept and educating every farmer about good cultivation techniques and sells seeds and fertilizers at competitive prices. Upon harvesting, the farmers have a choice of taking their produce either to their traditional mandis or getting them to ITC. The article says that the farmer’s prefer to sell it back to ITC because of competitive prices and no malpractices and they get paid without any delay (as is usually the case in mandis). This is the story of transformation of wheat to Aashirvaad.
However the concept that appealed the most to me was recognizing the buying power of the rural India. Though the buying capacity of every individual cannot be compared to that of an Urban Indian, the volume is so high that FMCG products are fast moving now in the villages. The farmers have hard cash with them on selling their produce and they don’t hesitate on spending the same in consumer goods. For more on this read this week's India Today.