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Project
Master of Management
By
Vivek Dhawan, Roll No. 02927815
Vivek Dhawan
Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management
IIT Bombay
III
Abstract
In the past few years, the power of Internet as a communication medium has
captured the imagination of developmental organizations around the world. A
number of projects have been undertaken in various parts of the world
attempting to provide sustainable digital access to rural communities. India
boasts a maximum number of such projects. There is an urgent need to study
these projects for critical factors for sustainability, scalability and impact of these
projects.
This particular study entails the study of rural internet project of n-Logue
Communications Pvt Ltd at its sites in the Pune District of Maharashtra. The
study focuses on the business model of n-Logue, which involves a Local Service
Partner at the region-level and an entrepreneur at the village level to run an
information kiosk. The infrastructure and nature of services provided at the
kiosks, usage charges, user profiles etc have been studied. It was found that the
major revenue generating services are: Computer education, Kundli,
Photography and Internet, in that order. Also a number of factors affect the kiosk
business: kiosk operator profile and personality, location of the kiosk,
demographic factors, services etc.
As part of the project, an evaluation of usage and impact of agricultural
consultancy through aAQUA was made. aAQUA ('a'lmost 'A'll 'QU'estions
'A'nswered) is an online expert Question & Answer based community forum,
developed by Media Labs Asia, KReSIT, IIT Bombay, for delivering information to
the grass roots of the Indian Community. It is an online, multilingual,
multimedia, archived discussion forum accessible using a web browser, allowing
members to create, view and manage content in their mother tongue (Hindi,
Marathi etc). aAQUA has cyber extended the reach of experts at KVK, Baramati
and has demonstrated great potential for local content creation. However aAQUA
suffers from the following limitations: slow rate of content creation and absence
of commercial benefit for the kiosk operator in the present model. Scaling up of
aAQUA would require linking up with a greater number of experts and a
commercial model at the kiosk level.
IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT................................................................................III
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................... IV
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................3
LIST OF TABLES ...............................................................................................3
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................3
1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................4
1.1 ICTS FOR DEVELOPMENT................................................................................................... 4
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT ......................................................................................... 5
1.2.1 About Vigyan Ashram ............................................................................................... 5
1.2.2 About VIIT................................................................................................................. 6
1.2.3 About Media Labs Asia (MLAsia), KReSIT, IIT Bombay ......................................... 7
1.2.4 About Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Baramati ........................................................ 8
1.3 PROJECT OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................ 8
1.4 PROJECT SCOPE ................................................................................................................. 8
1.5 METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................. 9
2. REVIEW OF SECONDARY RESEARCH ................................................11
2.1 THE CONCEPT OF “DIGITAL DIVIDE” ............................................................................... 11
2.2 BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ...................................................................................... 11
2.3 RURAL INFORMATION NEEDS .......................................................................................... 13
2.4 ICTS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT- CASES FROM INDIA.................................................... 14
2.4.1 Gyandoot, Dhar, M.P.............................................................................................. 15
2.4.2 Gramdoot, Aksh Optifiber, Rajasthan..................................................................... 16
2.4.3 Drishtee ................................................................................................................... 16
2.4.4 n-Logue, Chennai.................................................................................................... 17
2.4.5 Akshaya, Kerala ...................................................................................................... 17
2.4.6 Bhoomi Project, Karnataka .................................................................................... 18
2.5 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS .......................................................................................... 19
3. THE N-LOGUE MODEL .............................................................................21
3.1 INTRODUCTION: N-LOGUE COMMUNICATIONS PVT LTD.................................................. 21
3.2 CORDECT- THE TECHNOLOGY ....................................................................................... 21
3.2.1 The DECT Interface Unit (DIU) ............................................................................. 22
3.2.2 Wall Set with Internet Port (WS-IP) ....................................................................... 22
3.2.3 The iKON Remote Access Switch (RAS) ................................................................. 22
3.2.4 Network Management ............................................................................................. 22
3.2.5 The Compact Base Station (CBS) ........................................................................... 23
3.2.6 The Relay Base Station (RBS)................................................................................. 23
3.2.7 The Base Station Distributor (BSD)........................................................................ 24
1
3.3 N-LOGUE BUSINESS MODEL ............................................................................................ 24
3.4 THE COST STRUCTURE .................................................................................................... 27
3.5 THE REVENUE MODEL .................................................................................................... 27
3.6 N-LOGUE PROJECT SITES ................................................................................................. 29
4. THE PABAL/ BARAMATI PROJECTS: OBSERVATIONS AND
ANALYSIS .........................................................................................................30
4.1 BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ................................................................................................ 30
4.2 KIOSK OPERATOR SURVEY: OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS .......................................... 31
4.2.1 Costs and Revenue .................................................................................................. 31
4.2.2 Kiosk Services ......................................................................................................... 33
4.2.3 Factors influencing kiosk business.......................................................................... 36
4.2.4 Kiosk Problems ....................................................................................................... 37
5. AAQUA: ALMOST ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED .............................39
5.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 39
5.1.1 Motivation and goals............................................................................................... 39
5.1.2 Key Enabling Features............................................................................................ 40
5.1.3 Current Status ......................................................................................................... 41
5.1.4 Enhancing aAQUA.................................................................................................. 41
5.4 OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS....................................................................................... 42
6. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS.........................................47
6.1 KEY LEARNINGS .............................................................................................................. 47
6.1.1 Need for rural ICTs................................................................................................. 47
6.1.2 Critical Success Factors ......................................................................................... 47
6.1.3 Comments on the n-Logue Business Model ............................................................ 48
6.1.4 Comments on aAQUA ............................................................................................. 49
6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR VIGYAN ASHRAM ................................................................... 49
6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR AAQUA.................................................................................. 50
6.4 SCOPE OF FUTURE WORK ................................................................................................. 51
REFERENCES...................................................................................................52
APPENDIX A: DETAILS OF KIOSKS ..........................................................55
APPENDIX B: LSP ECONOMICS .................................................................56
APPENDIX C: KIOSK OPERATOR SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE .........58
APPENDIX D: KIOSK ECONOMICS ...........................................................62
APPENDIX E: CASE STUDY..........................................................................63
2
List of Figures
List of Tables
Table 2.1: Nature and Level of Interactivity between factors affecting rural Internet----------20
Table 3.1: Break Even revenues and Internet time--------------------------------------------------28
Table 4.1: Business performances of the projects (year 2 only)-----------------------------------30
Table 4.2: Kiosk Services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------33
Table 5.1: Threads by Category of Users ------------------------------------------------------------42
Table 5.2: Monthly no. of threads, by section, by user and response times ---------------------43
List of Abbreviations
3
1. Introduction
The idea that the Internet and related technologies might have an important role
in aiding developmental efforts has captured a central place in international
policy debates. Over the course of the last few years, statements affirming the
need to close the so-called ‘digital divide’ between social groups with and without
access to the internet have been made through several UN agencies, and at
meetings of developmental organizations around the world. The idea of digitally
oriented development is as powerful and seductive as the technology upon which
it is based. No single technological revolution has changed the lives of current
generations in the way that the Internet has. For example, it took at least a
century before the printing press touched 50 million individuals. It took 38 years
for radio to reach the same number, and thirteen years for television. But the
World Wide Web, in only four years, exceeded the 50,000,000 mark13. Never
before has a communications revolution spread so rapidly.
The promise of digital development is that it might have the same reach as the
original Internet boom of the mid 1990s – only this time the most disprivileged
communities, those who had missed out on earlier waves of technology, might
be able to ‘leapfrog’ over their more developed competitors. The greatest
obstacles to rural development in developing economies – large distances and
inadequate infrastructure, might be obviated by instant access to virtual
institutions that provide banking, education, health care, neonatal information,
agricultural advice, and so forth.
At the same time, questions are being asked if ICTs are the way to go in
developing countries, such as those in South Asia, where most rural populations
lack running water and sanitation systems, electricity is still a scarce and
intermittent resource, roads are poor and education a luxury. The value of IT for
rural development is accompanied by this dilemma for decision makers and
multilateral funding agencies: should the very limited resources for rural
4
development be applied to developing IT capacities, or are they best used for
other high priorities such as schools, hospitals, and dispensaries?
India boasts of the maximum number of rural ICT projects. There have been a
number of models like Gyandoot, ITC e-Choupal, n-Logue, Drishtee etc. A
common foundation for many of these projects is setting up an entrepreneurial
information kiosk/ Telecenter at the village level.
¾ It is based on WLL corDECT technology touted as the low cost solution for
rural connectivity in developing countries.
In the year 2001, n-Logue, after its pilot projects in Chennai, launched two
projects in Maharashtra, at Pabal and Baramati. The Local service partners for
these projects were Vigyan Ashram, an NGO and VIIT, an IT institute run by
Vidya Pratishthan trust of Baramati. The initial set of kiosks was established by
subsidies from the Department of Agriculture for providing agricultural
consultancy services through these kiosks. Presently, agricultural consultancy is
being provided at these project sites through aAQUA, a multilingual, multimedia
question answer system for delivering information to grassroots Indian
community developed by Media Labs Asia, IIT Bombay. Experts at Krishi Vigyan
Kendra, Baramati, provide the answers.
5
in the village itself. The course was appropriately named Rural Development
Education System (RDES). The objectives of the RDES Program are: -
¾ To reverse the rural to urban migration and to give a multi-skill base for
specialization.
The system of ‘Learning while Doing, in real life situation’ adopted by Vigyan
Ashram, involves doing community service work in real life as part of education.
Thus students learn while doing development work, in sense development works
gives the student opportunity to learn. Education and Development have been
integrated. Many educationalists advocated this philosophy in the past, but for
the first time Dr.Kalbag spelled this philosophy as a program, he successfully
demonstrated it over 20 years. RDES Program is at present getting implemented
in 23 schools and 2 non-formal centers.
6
1.2.3 About Media Labs Asia (MLAsia), KReSIT, IIT Bombay
Media Lab Asia is the world's largest academic research program dedicated to
bringing the benefits of new technologies to everyone, with a special focus on
meeting the grand challenges in learning, health, and economic development.
The role of Media Lab Asia is to facilitate the invention, refinement, and
dissemination of innovations that benefit the greatest number possible of the
world’s neediest people. Media Lab Asia works with industry, NGO’s and
governments, to take these innovations to various villages in India.
Media Lab Asia consists of regional laboratories and participating grassroots
communities. Every regional laboratory is formed around several core projects,
each involving academic, industrial, and village community partners. Currently,
there are three umbrella projects undertaken at Media Lab Asia - IIT Bombay.
These are:
Tools being developed under this project: Agro-explorer, aAQUA, Bhav Puchiye.
Interfaces for all - This project has been started to focus on design and
evaluation of devices and interfaces for computer users. Issues surrounding
usability of computers relating to non-computer savvy users and vernacular
language computing are some of the first issues being addressed. Several efforts
like the Key-lekh keyboard, Bhav-Puchiye (a tool for finding market prices for the
agricultural produce for farmers), Tangible user interfaces, etc. are under way. In
addition to this, the group also assists other projects in designing appropriate
interfaces for their tools.
Tools being developed under this project: Tangible user interfaces, Indian
language input devices.
7
Polysensors - Presently, the purity of water in our increasingly polluted
environment can only be tested in laboratories using expensive equipment and
highly trained technicians. This project aims at providing a low-cost and easy
method of testing the impurities in water, with low-cost, rugged and tropicalized
sensors
¾ Study the existing business model of n-Logue and Vigyan Ashram rural
Internet project at Pabal, Maharashtra. Assessment of present infrastructure,
services and usage etc.
The details of the n-Logue business model have been obtained from the following
sources: -
8
¾ Articles and papers in journals and magazines,
¾ The Local Service Partner or the managing agent for the access center.
¾ The kiosk operators who invest in the kiosks at village level and operate the
services.
The models of kiosk and LSP ownership have been explained in detail in Chapter
3. At the time of study, nine kiosks in Pabal and six kiosks in Baramati were
offering public services. These have been covered under the kiosk operator
survey and a detail of these has been provided in the appendix A.
¾ Analysis of 93 posts under the crop diseases, animal diseases and others
section of the website
http://www.projects.mlasia.iitb.ac.in/aquar/forum/index
¾ Interaction with the experts at KVK, Baramati and farmer groups in different
villages.
Details about aAQUA, functioning etc have been taken from the following
source: http://www.projects.mlasia.iitb.ac.in/docs/aAQUA.pdf.
1.5 Methodology
9
¾ A survey of kiosk operators to identify kiosk operator profile, kiosk services,
usage, technology issues and problems.
10
2. Review of Secondary Research
One of the most hyped phrases in the context of ICTs for development is “Digital
Divide”. Kenneth Keniston13 of MIT introduces the concept of, not one, but four
digital divides. The first divide is that which exists within every nation,
industrialized or developing, between those who are rich, educated, and
powerful, and those who are not.
A second digital divide, less often noted, is linguistic and cultural. In many
nations this divide separates those who speak English or another West European
language from those who do not. This is quite notable in India, and is further
compounded by linguistic issues. An estimated 60-80% of all Web sites in the
world are in English while almost all the rest are in one of the major 'Northern'
languages like Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and increasingly
Chinese. But in India, like the rest of South Asia, only an estimated 2-10% of the
population speaks fluent English while the rest (more than 900 million Indians
and about 1.2 billion South Asians) speak other languages.
The third digital divide follows inevitably from the first two -- it is the growing
digital gap between the rich and the poor nations. The fourth digital divide is the
difference between the lifestyles of those who are in the IT or similar sunrise
industries like Biotechnology and those who are in the other professions.
With the understanding of digital divide, several agencies are also talking about
bridging the digital divide. Interestingly, ICTs have been touted as the solution to
development. It has been suggested that digital access could well be linked to
wealth accumulation. Victor, Philip et al15 suggest a positive correlation between
teledensity and GDP per capita for low and middle-income countries. As for
Internet access, Thomas Schauer18 feels that Internet has not existed for
sufficiently long, and it is not possible to examine whether poor countries which
have put a focus on overall development (wealth first!) subsequently have better
opportunities to create an information society or whether the strategy should be
11
to invest massively into the IT infrastructure in order to create subsequent
wealth.
So then what is the promise of ICTs towards reducing the “digital divide” and the
“income divide” associated with it? It would be interesting to look at the case of
ITC initiated e-Choupal project in India. This is an excellent example of how
Internet access has created wealth for farmers from about 6000 villages in MP in
India10. The project initiated in September 2001 by ITC was intended to gain
control over Soya procurement supply chain. ITC harnessed the power of
information technology to fill institutional voids in the Soya procurement chain by
avoiding middlemen and directly buying Soya from the farmers. According to ITC
“The intermediary has information and, thus, extracts a greater margin. So we
said to ourselves if you bring this information to the farmer and use go-
betweens where they are adding value directly, you have a business model." To
do that, ITC first leased three Soya processing and collection centers. These
centers were created in the mid-90s and had, since then, gone under. Then it
started scouting villages around these centers for lead farmers (sanchalaks) to
head each choupal. The computer was placed at the sanchalak's house and he
was trained to use it. Having put them in place, ITC started to pump information
on daily mandi prices through the Internet into the sanchalak's homes. Farmers
would gather as they did at choupals, check the prices and head out to the
collection centers to sell their produce. The idea of heading out to the collection
centers struck the right kind of chords among the farming community. Here,
because systems were efficient, the transactions are completed in a few hours
rather than days as they used to. So they came to the collection centers in
droves. The sanchalaks, for their part in directing farmers to these collection
centers, were paid a commission of 0.5% for each tonne of soyabean that
originated from their choupal. On ITC’s part, the procurement costs of Soya
came down from Rs 700 per tonne to approx. Rs 300 per tonne. The math looked
roughly like this. On an average, it cost Rs 40,000 to set up a basic Choupal. In
places where connectivity was terribly poor, and telephone lines to connect to
the Internet still a pipe dream, ITC invested in V-SATs. These investments jacked
up costs by as much as Rs 1 lakh. According to ITC, it has been able to recoup
12
the investment in three sowing seasons (18 months). At the time of going to
print (January 2003), MP had 1,045 e-choupals spread over 6,000 villages that
covered six lakh farmers. ITC is now planning to apply the model to wheat
procurement, which is a market, multiple times that of Soya market.
But what relevance do ICTs have to rural consumers? Can ICTs be the solution to
poor infrastructure for health, telecom and education in rural India? What are the
information needs of the rural consumer? Many of these questions are answered
by an NIC, Government of India study6. Based upon a survey in a rural area in
the state of Bihar, following information categories were arrived at: -
13
¾ Health
¾ Agriculture
o Rainfall (forecasting)
o Cropping Pattern
o Irrigation (Sources)
¾ Education
o Distance Education/Learning
¾ Government Information
¾ Land Records
Having identified the various information needs for the rural consumer, the next
question that arises is: what kind of model is appropriate to serve the rural
communities? What is the size of investment required? What problems and
challenges an organization is likely to confront if it sets out to provide such
services? Will these services make an impact that would justify investing in ICTs
for development rather than investing directly in health, sanitation, water,
power, roads etc? During the course of last few years, a number of ICT for
development projects have come up in India. Prominent ones of these are
described as following
14
2.4.1 Gyandoot, Dhar, M.P.
Gyandoot is an Intranet based Government to Citizen (G2C) service delivery
portal commissioned in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh (a state in central India)
in January 2000.
15
through improvements of the back-end processes and involvement of dedicated
government officials. Current ICT solutions are too costly for the level of usage
being experienced. The challenge for the management of the Gyandoot system
lies in enhancing the services to make the system cost effective, while benefiting
the rural poor, without worsening the digital divide.”
¾ Cable TV at homes
This is a model with high capital cost per kiosk, largely because of the technology
option. This jacks up the breakeven revenues of the kiosks to 20000-25000 per
month. Secondly employees and not private entrepreneurs man the kiosks. The
main revenue driver of the kiosks is cable services. However only 120 of the 400
kiosks are operational due to low revenues, administrative and business
problems.
Due to lower costs of optical fiber the model is now being considered viable for
high-income villages that are close to cities/ large towns.
2.4.3 Drishtee
Drishtee is an organizational platform for developing IT enabled services to rural
masses through a kiosk based revenue model7. Through a tiered franchise and
partnership model, Drishtee facilitates the creation of a rural networking
infrastructure. With nodes at the village, district, state and national level,
16
Drishtee enables access to worldwide information as well as local services using
its proprietary state-of-the-art software.
¾ Connectivity.
¾ Limited Research.
[Ref Chapter 3]
∗
http://ind.drishtee.com/
17
funding) and revenue guarantee to enable such kiosks to be set up in each and
every village in the district. The project covers 560 villages in the district. The
centers are connected by 16 Kbps, which is upgradeable to 4 Mbps as per the
agreement with Tulip, which is the connectivity provider.
Expected Benefits1
¾ Direct Benefits
18
land records as and when required. It incorporates process of online updating to
ensure that the RTCs provided to the farmers are in sync with the time. The
manual land records in operationalised taluks have been declared illegal. All the
mutations to the land records database are done on the computer itself so as to
ensure that data on computer remain current with time. Today, a computerized
land record kiosk (Bhoomi center) is operational in 140 of the 177 taluks in
Karnataka. At these taluka offices a farmer can obtain a copy of an RTC online by
paying a Rs.15 fee. A second computer screen faces the clients to enable them to
see the transaction being performed. Copies can be obtained for any land parcel
in the taluka by providing the name of the owner or the plot number. A Village
Accountant is available full-time at these kiosks.
¾ Financial Sustainability
Michael L. Best, MIT Media Lab and Colin M. Maclay2 describe some of the
challenges policymakers, the private sector, the international development
community, and others face in unleashing the power of markets to better serve
information and communication needs in rural and poor areas. They recommend
that there are six broad categories that must be considered for economic self-
sustainability: costs, revenue, networks, business models, policy, and capacity.
19
The following table depicts the nature of interaction between the factors and the
effects that they might have.
Table 2.1: Nature and Level of Interactivity between factors affecting rural Internet
20
3. The n-Logue Model
21
The components of the corDECT Wireless Access System are:
22
configuration, subscriber administration, accounting, fault notification and traffic.
The functions range from a bird’s eye-view of the operational status of a network
of corDECT systems to probing the internals of an individual wall set. CorVIEW
supports the SNMP protocol and can be connected to the corDECT system by any
IP network.
23
Figure 3.2: WS-IP connected through RBS
24
equipment providers, non-governmental organizations, content providers, and
government—that enable and support the businesses of franchise owners.
Since the technology is easy to deploy and support, the skills of the LSP are
more focused on selling the service, and creating awareness about its value.
They could make additional revenues through value-added services such as
hosting web pages and providing local content. They only need an operating
knowledge of the technology, enough to maintain a satisfactory quality of
service.
At the highest level of the business model, local entrepreneurs are recruited by
the LSP to establish village-level kiosk franchises that provide Internet and
telephone access to the local population. Through the LSP, n-Logue offers low-
priced “kiosk packages” consisting of a subscriber wall set (that connects the
kiosk to the access center), a computer, printer and backup battery. The kiosks
essentially function as combination rural Internet cafés and pay phone booths.
While n-Logue provides kiosk owners with training, support, and technical
assistance, local franchise owners themselves are responsible for developing
25
additional product and service offerings (e.g., computer courses) and marketing
strategies. Each kiosk costs approximately Rs 53,500 (USD $1200) to set up,
and includes the following equipment:
26
project area, the cost of the kiosk increases by Rs 5,000 (USD $110), and
includes an STD-PCO meter and all related telephony equipment.
Capital investment for the LSP amounts to around Rs 12 lakhs, of which 2 lakhs
is the agency cost, i.e. cost of being the managing agent of n-Logue’s access
center business and 10 lakhs is the refundable deposit, subject to terms and
conditions.
In the first year, n-Logue sets up the access center and related equipment, at a
cost of around Rs 10 lakhs. This has a capacity to provide 44 connections. Year 2
onwards the investments made by n-Logue depend on the performance of the
project.
The operational expenses of the access center, to be shared by the LSP and n-
Logue, can be categorized as following: -
The annual operational expenses are to the tune of Rs. 5 lakhs for single lease
line.
The LSP is entitled to 50% of the Net Monthly Revenues of the access center,
which is calculated as Gross Monthly Invoicing for the period, Net of the following
deductions: -
27
¾ Actual rent for the access center, RBS locations for the period.
¾ Actual cost of spares and repairs for maintenance of the Access Center.
¾ Expenses towards depreciation for the equipment installed. Zero in first year,
a maximum of Rs 1 lakh in year 2 and a maximum of Rs 2.5 lakhs in the year
3.
The following table gives the break-even revenues and Internet time: -
28
3.6 n-Logue Project Sites
14
19
29
4. The Pabal/ Baramati Projects: Observations and
Analysis
The following table gives the business performance at the two project sites.
¾ The performance of the Baramati project is clearly better than the Pabal LSP,
as indicated above. The reasons behind the difference in the performance of
the two LSPs are as following: -
o The difference in the demographic profile of the two regions. Baramati has
good agriculture and hence higher disposable income. Many villages in the
Pabal region, including Pabal itself, lie in the rain shadow area and are
facing drought for last 3 years.
30
¾ The Village Public Telephones are provided in partnership with Tata Indicom.
In 60 villages where this service has been started, this is the first telephone.
However the VPT initiatives faces the following challenges: -
o The revenue sharing arrangement between the LSP, n-Logue and Tata
Indicom is not clear. The reason cited for the uncertainty is the unified
telecom license policy, which came into place after the three parties had
come together.
o VPTs cannot connect to many BSNL phone numbers and vice-versa. The
reason cited is lack of co-operation from BSNL on interconnecting issues.
¾ The revenues reported at the Pabal/ Baramati kiosks range between Rs 1200
to Rs 7200. Here the multi-computer kiosks have not been included.
¾ The following graph depicts the break-up of revenues from different services
31
Figure 4.1: Revenue break-up from various services
¾ As is evident from the graph, the major revenue generating services are
Computer education, Kundli, Photography and Internet, in that order.
¾ At Pabal kiosks, data entry work was provided by KEM hospital, Vadu. Some
kiosks earned as much as Rs 2500-3500. However following problems are
associated with data entry work: -
32
4.2.2 Kiosk Services
¾ The following table describes the various services available at the kiosks,
whether offline/ online, usage charges and service provider: -
¾ The delivery, usage etc of individual services are discussed in the following
subsections.
¾ At most other locations, the number of users of Internet is very few/ singular.
For example in Pabal village, a lady chats with her husband.
¾ These service requests are made during the months of May-July, which is the
time around which admissions take place.
33
¾ Currently only external admissions can be applied for online. External
admissions mean that the applicant does not join any formal institution.
¾ Almost all kiosks have reported this service request ranging 5-30 in numbers
during a particular year.
¾ As of now, there are no charges for aAQUA. For details on service requests
refer chapter 5.
¾ Katewadi kiosk has placed maximum number of such service requests and
reportedly charged Rs 20 per service requests.
¾ The charges range from Rs 860 to Rs 2050 for self study and computer center
guided courses. The certification examinations are conducted twice a year.
¾ Even some single computer kiosks have been able to attract students for
computer education and typing. However this is subject to the personality of
kiosk operator as perceived by the students. Kiran, the kiosk operator at
Retaudi, is only first year B. Com. and self trained in computers. He has so far
34
provided computer education to ten people with the help of self-learning MS
Office CDs. On the other hand, Somnath, the kiosk operator at Pabal, is
formally trained in computers and has so far provided computer education to
more than fifty students.
¾ Single computer kiosks cannot run batches and this discourages female
students.
¾ Kendur and Shikrapur kiosks are now planning to add more computers and
offer computer education.
4.2.2.5 Kundli
¾ Kundli service has been extremely successful at Shikrapur kiosk. Mr. Rajendra
Patil, the kiosk owner, has tied up with an astrologer to offer Kundli service.
Also above the kiosk there is a hospital offering maternity services and the
kiosk is run in the medical shop.
¾ Clever bit, a Pune based software company provides kundli software for Rs
1500.
¾ Seeing the success of kundli, n-Logue has put the kundli software on their
server. The kundli service can now be offered online at any kiosk.
4.2.2.6 Photography
¾ The photography service is being offered using web cam at Katewadi kiosk.
The service is popular because of Bank of Maharashtra, which is next to kiosk.
4.2.2.7 Telemedicine
¾ Telemedicine was introduced as a pilot in the villages of Kendur and Pabal,
with the help of KEM hospital in Vadu village. The doctors would advise
patients through Net meeting during 1000-1200 hrs on weekdays. The
charges for each service request were kept at Rs 5. However the service has
not drawn very good response, the reasons being as follows: -
35
o The charges are too low and therefore the kiosk operator is not motivated
to provide this service.
o Both Pabal and Kendur villages have government health care centers as
well as private practitioners.
o The Shikrapur kiosk has two major revenue earning services, the Kundli
and Internet browsing. Shikrapur being on the highway, and near the
industrial area, Mr. Rajendra Patil, the kiosk owner, has 5-6 permanent
customers for browsing. He has tied up with an astrologer to offer Kundli
service.
¾ The kiosks doing well are those where the kiosk has been added to an
existing business. Consider the following cases: -
o The Shikrapur kiosk was added to an existing business, i.e. medical shop.
36
¾ The profile of kiosk owner/ operator is a major influencing factor for the kiosk
profitability, access to services etc. Consider the following cases: -
o Mr. Bharat Pachange, the Kendur kiosk owner, does not allow public
access, as the digital photography business is dependent on the computer.
¾ Pabal Lease line failure, only 60% uptime as reported by LSP management.
Rajgurunagar back-up line not working at the time of the survey.
37
Status: Vendor took 2 months to respond and rectify.
Status: Problem since Dec 2003, not rectified at the time of survey, i.e.
May 2004.
38
5. aAQUA: Almost All Questions Answered
5.1 Introduction
¾ To provide easy and fast access to reliable information (both through artificial
agents and Human Experts from all over the world)
¾ This also includes media like voice to text, text to voice, videos, pictures, and
images for non-literate or semi-illiterate people.
∗
Universal Networking Language developed by Professor Aniruddha Joshi, IIT Bombay at Center for Indian
Language Translation (CFILT), IIT Bombay.
39
5.1.2 Key Enabling Features
¾ Use of Multimedia: The system is designed to cater to the needs of rural users
to express themselves to each other as well as to the outer world. Their
inability to articulate their thoughts using the input devices commonly
available is overcome by use of images instead of text, building on their rich
visual vocabularies to communicate.
¾ Users are the consumers as well as producers of the content: aAQUA eases
the creation of content i.e., text, images, short audio, video and animations,
thus helping the users move from being passive consumers to active content
creators. This is illustrated in Figure 5.1. The community has created more
than 90% of the current English, Hindi and Marathi content of aAQUA locally.
40
¾ Assistance in creating content for aAQUA is provided by the telecenter/kiosk
operator. This takes the technology to users who are unfamiliar to computers
and often not literate. They can now experience the Internet as well as
participate through it. This is a great motivating factor for people as it
showcases the benefits of using a computer in their everyday lives.
¾ An end user can select the category and the specific forum with which she
wants to interact, or from which she wishes to view posts.
¾ The user can choose an avatar, either from built-in avatars or upload his/her
own avatar (jpg/gif/png). This has been observed to be a very popular
feature with the community.
¾ As on May 29, 2004, aAQUA had 99 threads under the crop diseases, animal
diseases and others forums. For detailed analysis of aAQUA usage, refer to
section 5.2.
41
¾ Another area where Media Labs is putting efforts is enabling mobile wireless
devices like the Simputer and mobile phones to access aAQUA.
¾ The following analysis pertains to the live threads under the crop diseases,
animal diseases and others sections of aAQUA as on May 29, 2004 [for details
refer appendix 6].
*Identified thread means that the person who posed the query is known.
o The field engineers have posted 36 of the identified threads. This implies
that the probability of answers reaching to these people is less.
42
o 18 of 93 threads have some kind of multimedia input: pictures or audio.
Table 5.2: Monthly no. of threads, by section, by user and response times
Farmer 1 Questions
Kiosk
Operator/
Farmer 2
Field Engg
Expert
Expert1
Questions
Answers
Farmer n aAQUA
Expert 2
Field Engg
Answers Expert n
43
and also farmers have started approaching the kiosk operators. This can also
be inferred from table 5.2 above.
¾ The problem of batch processing of questions occurs at the experts’ end. The
field engineer prints the new queries, allocates to experts on the basis of their
area of expertise, gets the answers and uploads them on aAQUA. The field
engineer at experts’ end is a bottleneck resource. However at current level of
questions/ threads on aAQUA, the field engineer at experts’ end is an
underutilized resource.
¾ The current sources of information for farmers are fertilizer/ pesticide shops,
agricultural officers or other farmers. When a farmer discovers a crop disease,
it has already spread to a part of the cultivation. Thus the farmer needs a
solution very urgently. This implies that the response time for aAQUA advice
should be 12 hrs-1 business day.
¾ The farmer needs a quick solution and therefore goes to the medicine shop.
The medicine shop gives a package of 2-3 pesticides. Although the pesticides
are costly and the farmers know that they are paying more by not having
exact solution, the farmers have expressed satisfaction with this current way
of solving problems. According to the farmers interviewed, the solution
recommended by medicine shop works 60-70% of the times.
o Most of the answers were rated as very good, esp. very practical and
useful.
44
o In some cases, the pesticide chemical to be used is given. However, the
name of commercially available pesticide containing that chemical should
be given.
o The solution corresponds to a different stage in the farming cycle, for e.g.
which seed variety would be resistant to the pest is given, while the
solution to prevent infection is required.
¾ The experts at KVK feel that they are handicapped by absence of knowledge
of actual field conditions. If the problems were supplemented by visuals, the
expert advise would be much more effective and relevant. Problems should
also detail parameters like approximate temperature, humidity/ irrigation,
area under infection etc.
¾ The kiosk operators are the most important link in aAQUA. Kiosk operator
survey yields following observations on aAQUA: -
o Marketing support for aAQUA, doubts about what can be posted or not on
aAQUA.
¾ Overall most kiosk operators feel that aAQUA can be successful provided the
response times could be improved. Following are the kiosk operators’
suggestions for content on aAQUA: -
45
o Website hosting of local institutions.
o Matrimonial.
46
6. Conclusion and recommendations
¾ Agricultural Consultancy
The other area where ICTs are required is e-governance, as demonstrated by the
Bhoomi project of Karnataka. Even though the Dhar project in Madhya Pradesh
was not very successful, the CEG, IIM Ahmedabad study noted that the
corruption in delivery of governance services did come down.
The problem cited with e-governance services is that the services at the back-
end continue to be manual. In this regard, the Bhoomi project can serve an ideal
example, where the manual mutations of land records have been declared illegal
in the operationalized taluks.
¾ Policy issues: Telephony revenues can affect the kiosk business significantly.
However, the kiosks cannot offer these services due to telephony policy.
Again VoIP can be a significant revenue generator but it is not allowed for
domestic calling. n-Logue expects to get a rural service provider license to
offer telephony services on its networks of kiosks.
¾ The impact of business model: Local entrepreneurs driving the rural ICTs
despite all odds power cuts, malfunctioning equipment, low and intermittent
bandwidth, zero customer support from providers of technology, interfaces
47
designed in English. The importance of selecting the right entrepreneur is also
emphasized by the experience of subsidies being misused in the case of Pabal
and Baramati projects.
¾ The importance of locally relevant content and services. The use of internet
can be augmented by such services; this is demonstrated by the usage of
Pune University online admission forms.
¾ Innovation in design of services for e.g. aAQUA, which has extended the
reach of experts to farmers in remote villages, making the community, the
producer as well as the consumer of content.
¾ The service does provide for real time video conferencing/ chat/ interaction at
the kiosk and can replace all face-to-face communication needs in the area of
e-governance, financial services.
¾ The case of Vigyan Ashram represents the case of an LSP making huge
losses. The primary reasons being: -
o The demographic profile of the region: drought condition and low per
capita income in the region.
48
In the light of these facts, it is questionable if n-Logue model, in its present
form, is replicable everywhere.
¾ This unique portal has cyber extended the reach of KVK, Baramati to about 13
villages at present. It is an innovative service, in the sense that it makes the
community a consumer as well as producer of the content.
Vigyan Ashram’s business performance is the weakest link in the Pabal project.
Being an NGO it has limited resources and faces the critical question: how to
utilize them to gain maximum social returns. Presently the LSP business is
getting cross-subsidized by the RDES and CD businesses. However, Vigyan
Ashram has to add new businesses to the LSP business to make the LSP business
sustainable. It can consider the following recommendations: -
¾ The network of kiosks can be used to extend services like DTP and
photography to other kiosks. Vigyan Ashram can mediate between the kiosks
to establish service level agreements.
49
can be set up at Vigyan Ashram, the results of the tests can be sent to KVK
for interpretation and recommendations and they can be delivered to the
farmers using aAQUA.
¾ The experience at Baramati and Chennai sites demonstrates that the LSP
business cannot break even merely on the kiosk internet usage. It has to
essentially look for private connections. A private connection means an
individual, for e.g. doctors, reporters etc, corporate customers, schools and
colleges etc. The present number of private connections in Pabal region is
around 25, whereas there are 85 private connections in Baramati. Vigyan
Ashram has to aggressively target corporate customers in the MIDC area.
¾ Pricing for private connections: Vigyan Ashram and n-Logue should reconsider
the pricing of Wall set for private connections, especially individuals, for the
Pabal region. At present the entire sum for the wall set (Rs 12500) is
recovered in advance and the internet usage is also prepaid. A postpaid billing
plan can be considered which recovers the wall set charges as rental. This
would make n-Logue connection competitive to BSNL internet, wherever it is
available. A BSNL phone connection costs Rs 2000 upfront and a monthly
rental of Rs 300 for the handset.
¾ Vigyan Ashram should seek clarification on the following issues from n-Logue:
¾ The efforts for content generation have to be increased. One way is to put the
local queries handled by KVK experts on aAQUA; anyways the field engineer
at experts’ end is an underutilized resource.
¾ Training the experts to use computers and digital cameras etc themselves,
thus reducing the dependence on field engineer.
50
¾ A key success factor for aAQUA would be the motivation of individual kiosk
operators to run the service. This implies having a commercial model for
aAQUA.
51
References
52
8. Gramdoot Project, Aksh Optifiber, Rajasthan “Gramdoot: Revolutionizing
rural India”.
Available online at < http://www.akshoptifibre.com/abl/bro1.htm>
(March 25, 2004)
9. Howard, Joy, Simms, Charis, Simanis, Erik, "What works: N-Logue's rural
connectivity model" A Digital Dividend study by the World Resources
Institute, July 2001.
Available online at <http://www.digitaldividend.org/pdf/nlogue.pdf >
(March 17, 2004)
10.ITC e-Choupal “ITC’s Rural Symphony: A Business world Case Study”.
Available online at
<http://www.businessworldindia.com/WebUserArticle.aspx?SectionId=395#>
(March 31, 2004)
11.Keniston, Kenneth, "Grassroots ICT Projects in India: Some Preliminary
Hypotheses" ASCI Journal of Management 31(1&2), 2002.
Available online at
<http://web.mit.edu/~kken/Public/PDF/ASCI_Journal_Intro__ASCI_version_.
pdf>
(March 11, 2004)
12.Keniston, Kenneth, "IT for Masses: Hope or Hype?"
Available online at <http://web.mit.edu/~kken/Public/PDF/EPW_paper.pdf>
(March 11, 2004)
13.Keniston, Kenneth, "The Four Digital Divides".
Available online at
<http://web.mit.edu/~kken/Public/PDF/Intro_Sage_1_.pdf>
(March 21, 2004)
14.Kulkarni, Yogesh, Director Vigyan Ashram.
Personal Communication. May 1, 2004
15.Mbarika, Victor W. , Kah, Muhammadou M.O. , Musa, Philip F. , Meso, Peter ,
Warren, John, “Predictors of Growth of Teledensity in Developing
Countries: A Focus on Middle and Low-Income Countries" The
53
Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, (2003) 12,
1, 1-16.
Available online at: <http://www.ejisdc.org/> (May 5, 2004)
16.Ponnappa, P.G., CEO n-Logue Communications Pvt. Ltd.
Tele-Conferencing. June 2, 2004.
17.Rajora, Rajesh, “Bridging the Digital Divide” Tata- McGraw Hill, 2002, pp
66-67.
18.Schauer, Thomas, "The internet in development Projects: Support for
the poor or subsidies for the computer providers?" i4d, Volume II
Number 3, March 2004.
Available online at
<http://www.i4donline.net/issue/march04/computer_full.htm>
(April 4, 2004)
19.Sood, Aditya Dev,"The Kiosk Networks: Information nodes in the rural
landscape" i4d, Volume I Number 1, May-June 2003.
Available online at <http://www.i4donline.net/issue/may03/aditya_full.htm>
(April 4, 2004)
54
Appendix A: Details of Kiosks
55
Appendix B: LSP Economics
Note: Break even revenue calculated here gives the project revenues at which the LSP would break
even.
Year 1:-
x -> Gross yearly invoicing (Revenue from sale of pre-paid internet packs)
LSP's Annual costs (salaries 1 Lakh + Assuming LSP take Rs 10 lakh on loan, Annual interest@
10.75 %( PLR) = Rs 259416)
= 100000 + 259500
= 359500
Year 2:-
LSP's Share of Net Yearly Revenue
=(x-448000-100000)/2
[1 lakh for depreciation]
=(x-548000)/2
LSP's Costs (salaries 10% hike + Interest on loan amt of Rs 10, 00,000)
= 110000 + 259500
= Rs 369500
56
Year 3:-
LSP's Share of Net Yearly Revenue
=(x-448000-250000-150000)/2
{150000 towards application development and maintenance, 250000 towards depreciation for year
3}
=(x-848000)/2
LSP's Costs (salaries 10% hike + Interest on loan amt of Rs 10, 00,000)
=121000 + 259500
= Rs 380500
57
Appendix C: Kiosk Operator Survey Questionnaire
A. Personal Profile
Name Sex
Village Age
Literacy Caste
Past
APL/ BPL
Occupation
Computer
Earning
Experience
B. Family Profile
Members
Name Sex Age Literacy Occupation Residence
Assets Owned
Name of Asset Owned Size/ No.s Ancestral/ Newly Bought
Immovable
Livestock
Vehicles
Economic Level
Sources of Income Income before kiosk Income after kiosk
1.
2.
Total Income
58
D. VIK
Kiosk Started in:
Kiosk located in village:
Kiosk Ownership:
Size of Kiosk:
Number of Villages the kiosk caters to:
Other Services offered at Kiosk:
STD
DTP
Café/ Internet access
Photocopying
Others, please specify
Problems faced
ATR (Avg Time to Rectify)
Frequency(Number of times)
Nature of Problem
This month This quarter Year-to-date
No. ATR No. ATR No. ATR
Power Breakdown
Connectivity Breakdown
Slow response time
Hardware failure
Software failure
59
E. Usage Patterns
Most popular time of kiosk visits
Morning (Upto 12)
Afternoon (12-4)
Early Evening (4-6)
Evening (After 6)
60
Operator’s perception of services unavailable as of now and expected demand for them.
Nature of Service Expected Demand Profile of citizens demanding the service
61
Appendix D: Kiosk Economics
Assuming loan amt of 53500 (kiosk kit) @ 12.75%, to be repaid in 2 years
EMI= 2500 (EMI for subsidized Pabal Kiosks=1250)
62
Appendix E: Case Study
aAQUA: Almost All Questions Answered
About aAQUA
aAQUA ('a'lmost 'A'll 'QU'estions 'A'nswered) is an online expert Question & Answer based
community forum, developed by Media Labs Asia, KReSIT, IIT Bombay, for delivering information
to the grass roots of the Indian Community. It is an online, multilingual, multimedia, archived
discussion forum accessible using a web browser, allowing members to create, view and manage
content in their mother tongue (Hindi, Marathi etc). It can be accessed using the following link:
<http://www.projects.mlasia.iitb.ac.in/aquar/forum/index>
¾ To provide easy and fast access to reliable information (both through artificial agents and
Human Experts from all over the world)
¾ Integrating the agricultural domain of aAQUA with the Agro-Explorer group, which uses the
UNL/MT∗ fundamentals for performing "Meaning Based Searches" through the available
databases.
¾ This also includes media like voice to text, text to voice, videos, pictures, and images for non-
literate or semi-illiterate people.
Media Lab Asia is the world's largest academic research program dedicated to bringing the benefits
of new technologies to everyone, with a special focus on meeting the grand challenges in learning,
health, and economic development.
The role of Media Lab Asia is to facilitate the invention, refinement, and dissemination of
innovations that benefit the greatest number possible of the world’s neediest people. Media Lab
Asia works with industry, NGO’s and governments, to take these innovations to various villages in
India.
Media Lab Asia consists of regional laboratories and participating grassroots communities. Every
regional laboratory is formed around several core projects, each involving academic, industrial, and
∗
Universal Networking Language developed by Professor Aniruddha Joshi, IIT Bombay at Center for Indian
Language Translation (CFILT), IIT Bombay.
63
village community partners. Media Labs Asia- Maharashtra hub is located at the Kanwal Rekhi
School of Information Technology, IIT Bombay.
Currently, there are three umbrella projects undertaken at Media Lab Asia - IIT Bombay. These are
described as following: -
Interlingua - This project aims to develop a multilingual meaning based search engine which can
take queries in the local language and return results to the same in the language of query. This
project was initiated keeping in mind that most of the people in India are denied the huge wealth
of information present on the web simply because they do not know English, the lingua franca of
the web. Enabling access in local language is important to bridge the digital divide.
Tools being developed under this project: Agro-explorer, aAQUA, Bhav Puchiye.
Interfaces for all - This project has been started to focus on design and evaluation of devices and
interfaces for computer users. Issues surrounding usability of computers relating to non-computer
savvy users and vernacular language computing are some of the first issues being addressed.
Several efforts like the Key-lekh keyboard, Bhav-Puchiye (a tool for finding market prices for the
agricultural produce for farmers), Tangible user interfaces, etc. are under way. In addition to this,
the group also assists other projects in designing appropriate interfaces for their tools.
Tools being developed under this project: Tangible user interfaces, Indian language input devices.
Polysensors - Presently, the purity of water in our increasingly polluted environment can only be
tested in laboratories using expensive equipment and highly trained technicians. This project aims
at providing a low-cost and easy method of testing the impurities in water, with low-cost, rugged
and tropicalized sensors
¾ The repository currently contains questions and answers in the domain of crop and animal
diseases and pertains to the hamlet of villages around Pabal and Rajgurunagar taluks in the
Pune District. This region has internet connectivity provided by n-Logue communication and
Vigyan Ashram. At the village level, an entrepreneur runs the kiosk business. He’ll be referred
to as kiosk operator hereafter.
¾ At present Media Labs Asia has partnered with 6 of the 9 operational kiosks in the Pabal region.
64
Farmer 1 Questions
Kiosk
Operator/
Farmer 2
Field Engg
Expert
Expert1
Questions
Answers
Farmer n aAQUA
Expert 2
Field Engg
Answers Expert n
¾ As on May 29, 2004, aAQUA had 99 threads under the crop diseases, animal diseases and
others forums. For detailed analysis of aAQUA usage, refer to exhibit 1.
¾ Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Baramati is providing the expert consultation services with experts
in the crop and animal diseases domains. For more information on KVK, please visit the
following link http://www.kvkbaramati.com/
¾ Use of Multimedia: The system is designed to cater to the needs of rural users to express
themselves to each other as well as to the outer world. Their inability to articulate their
thoughts using the input devices commonly available is overcome by use of images instead of
text, building on their rich visual vocabularies to communicate.
¾ Users are the consumers as well as producers of the content: aAQUA eases the creation of
content i.e., text, images, short audio, video and animations, thus helping the users move from
being passive consumers to active content creators. This is illustrated in Figure 5.1. The
community has created more than 90% of the current English, Hindi and Marathi content of
aAQUA locally.
65
Figure 5.1: An annotated sample screen shot of aAQUA
¾ Assistance in creating content for aAQUA is provided by the Telecenter/ kiosk operator. This
takes the technology to users who are unfamiliar to computers and often not literate. They can
now experience the Internet as well as participate through it. This is a great motivating factor
for people as it showcases the benefits of using a computer in their everyday lives.
¾ An end user can select the category and the specific forum with which she wants to interact, or
from which she wishes to view posts.
¾ The user can choose an avatar, either from built-in avatars or upload his/her own avatar
(jpg/gif/png). This has been observed to be a very popular feature with the community.
Exhibit 2 gives a detailed analysis of 99 questions, as reported on aAQUA on May 29, 2004: -
66
December January February March April May
Number of Threads
a. Crop Diseases 17 19 5 10 4 7
b. Animal Diseases 2 2 3 1 2 0
c. Others 9 1 1 2 2 0
Posted by
a. Field Engineer 21 15 0 4 7 1
b. Kiosk Operator 2 6 5 7 0 6
c. Users 5 1 4 2 1 0
Avg. Response Time (in days) 56 22 32 9 8 2
Max. Response Time (in days) 145 110 85 70 19 4
Min. Response Time (in days) 31 4 8 20 Mins. 3 2.5 Hrs.
∗
Identified thread means that the person who posed the query is known.
67
aAQUA: Feedback from different User categories
The Farmers
¾ The current sources of information for farmers are fertilizer/ pesticide shops, agricultural
officers or other farmers. When a farmer discovers a crop disease, it has already spread to a
part of the cultivation. Thus the farmer needs a solution very urgently. This implies that the
response time for aAQUA advice should be 12 hrs-1 business day.
¾ The farmer needs a quick solution and therefore goes to the medicine shop. The medicine shop
gives a package of 2-3 pesticides. Although the pesticides are costly and the farmers know that
they are paying more by not having exact solution, the farmers have expressed satisfaction
with this current way of solving problems. According to the farmers interviewed, the solution
recommended by medicine shop works 60-70% of the times.
¾ Farmers who employ modern techniques of cultivation generally seek information on these.
They refer to magazines like Bali raja and Krishi Udhyog. Such information if available on
aAQUA would evoke interest in the farmers.
¾ Problems cited by farmers (on the basis evaluation of randomly selected queries from aAQUA):
-
o Most of the answers were rated as very good, esp. very practical and useful.
o In some cases, the pesticide chemical to be used is given. However, the name of
commercially available pesticide containing that chemical should be given.
o The solution corresponds to a different stage in the farming cycle, for e.g. which seed
variety would be resistant to the pest is given, while the solution to prevent infection is
required.
¾ The experts at KVK feel that they are handicapped by absence of knowledge of actual field
conditions. If the problems were supplemented by visuals, the expert advice would be much
more effective and relevant.
¾ Problems should also detail parameters like approximate temperature, humidity/ irrigation,
area under infection etc.
¾ Slow response time on aAQUA has discouraged farmers and kiosk operators. Farmers generally
come back after a day to inquire about their problems.
¾ Marketing support for aAQUA, doubts about what can be posted or not on aAQUA.
68
¾ One of the concerns of the kiosk operators is that aAQUA is only an experiment and it might be
discontinued.
Problem Definition
Media Labs Asia is now planning to extend aAQUA to other n-Logue project sites in Maharashtra. At
present n-Logue has around 17 project sites in various stages. The critical questions that Media
Labs Asia faces are as following: -
¾ How to measure the impact of aAQUA in the Pabal/ Rajgurunagar regions where it is presently
operational?
¾ What problems/ challenges would it face, if the project is to be scaled up to other sites?
¾ Media Labs Asia is funded by the Ministry of IT and hence it cannot charge for aAQUA services.
However, the kiosk operator would not be motivated to offer aAQUA services if there is no
financial benefit. Therefore, what should be an appropriate commercial model for aAQUA?
69