Towards Sustainability: Stories from India 42 12 Virtual Reality Innovations in technology for development India is acknowledged as a leader in software technology exports, as well as a significant source of information technology professionals. Within the country itself, Information Technology (IT) is being used for more than commercial purposes alone. Through a variety of innovative initiatives, Information Technology has become a significant tool for improving the quality of life of the ordinary citizen.   Paneerselvan, a fisherman of Veerampattinam near Pondicherry on India’s south-eastern coast, used to drag his boat out to sea before sunrise everyday, not knowing what the sea had in store for him.  He did not know how the tides would behave, whether he would get a good catch, or even whether he would return at all, if there was a storm. Now he gets all the information he needs from a local volunteer who checks the internet four times a day. Paneerselvan says “When a computer says that there will be a storm, there has always been one. We all believe it.” Today, people in and around villages in Pondicherry take advantage of the information provided to them—information on prices of fish, crops, and other commodities, and the latest government policies and programmes. This information is available, thanks to a project  initiated by the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, an NGO. The main aim of the project is to connect villages with the world, and to each other, through the internet.   Several hundreds of kilometers from Pondicherry, as the crow flies, is the district of Dhar in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. This is the site of a unique form of government- to-citizen e-commerce activity called   Gyandoot (Messenger of Knowledge). Through Gyandoot, villagers access market information and government services. All in a Day’s Work Market Needs Remote Sensing for Sustainable Development The intensively-cultivated state of Punjab in northern India is a major contributor to the grain basket of the country. However, over the years, the state government realized that intensive resource use was jeopardizing long-term sustainability. Remote sensing came in as a handy tool to plan for the sustainable management of land and water. Remote sensing was used to generate maps to tackle the problems of thick sand cover, soil salinity, water logging and poor quality of groundwater in Punjab, as part of an all-India programme. This programme—Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development (IMSD) has been was undertaken in selected blocks or watersheds in 175 districts of 25 States of the country. The project was coordinated by the Indian Space Research Organization, Department of Space. The satellite data has been used to prepare thematic maps of geomorphology, soils and land use. Also, water quality maps have been prepared using randomly collected water samples from the study area. All the maps have been integrated to develop a resource constraint map. Recommendations have been made based on this, and an action plan map generated for the management and conservation of under-utilized areas, for achieving optimal returns on a sustainable basis.

Unique Adaptations of Technology and Practices 43 Information in Hand A key challenge in a country like India is to make IT affordable.  In order to ensure that it is useful in the remotest areas, it is also necessary to make it less dependent on electric supplies, as these may be erratic.  A third challenge is to adapt it for use in various local languages. These are some of the challenges that the Simputer meets.  The Simputer is the acronym for Simple Inexpensive Mobile Computer. This   battery operated, pocket-sized computer is equipped with local language software, and also has audio options for converting text to speech. Developed at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, the Simputer will sell for less than Rs 10,000 (US $200) The Dhar district is a soybean and cotton growing area, and has a number of agricultural wholesale markets. To sell their produce, farmers in Dhar used to rely on traders who quoted rates far below the market price, and made large profits. If they did not want to sell their goods through these traders, the farmers had to travel long distances in search of wholesale markets that offered them  better rates.   Through Gyandoot, farmers are now able to cut out these traders and go to places where their products can fetch the highest prices. The Internet connects the district headquarters to 21 rural cyber cafes called Soochanalayas (Information Houses). These Soochnalayas are located at village council offices, bazaars, local shops, bus depots, and along roadsides which people of the villages frequently traverse. Each Soochanalaya provides services to between 20 and 30 villages, covering approximately between 20,000 and 30,000 people. Lalita Rathod, a 35-year-old illiterate woman, says, “I asked for the price of apples at the Dhar wholesale market. The coordinator pressed some buttons, and there it was on the screen. I cannot read, but he told me it was 50 rupees cheaper per crate than the rate in the village market. The next morning, I travelled to Dhar to buy fruits.” Around 60 villages in Ramanathapuram distirct of Tamil Nadu have all the information they need available on a click of a mouse. Through a pilot project of the Government of India, implemented by the Centre of Ecology and Rural Development, an NGO, village information centres called Samadhan Kendras (Solution Centres) have been set up in two blocks of the district, catering to the wide variety of needs of the villagers. The Centres aim to provide information leading to solutions to common village problems. An ‘information-bank’ type of software provides data on areas such as animal husbandry, inland fresh-water fisheries, vermiculture management, government schemes and loans, educational and job opportunities, etc. A new software has also been developed which functions as a decision-support system on matters relating to integrated pest managment systems, fertilizer application, crop information, health monitoring support, etc. Block level workers have been extensively trained on the software to help the local people. Reports generated are available in Tamil, the local language. Seeing its success, the Government of India has launched 3 more projects, two in the state of Madhya Pradesh and one in Andhra Pradesh. One-Stop Solution Centre No Barriers The National Association of the Blind (NAB) and the American software giant Microsoft have recently set up a cyber café for the visually impaired. The cafe has five computers which can be used by computer- literate, visually impaired persons. The special software used here reads out the words in English, in accordance with the movement of the cursor. It also reads out every letter the user types in, so that any mistake can be rectified.  A low-vision attendant who is present at all times assists the users. Users can take printouts in Braille or copy matter into Mp3 discs.  The charges here are much lower than charges at other cyber cafes. Muffadilal Munshi, a visually impaired sociology post- graduate says, he uses the café at least thrice a week.  “Right now I use it mainly for e-mail and for surfing for entertainment.  However, now that I am looking for a job, I will be using it for job-hunting and research too”.

Towards Sustainability: Stories from India 44 Railways Go Online The Indian Railways are the largest rail network in Asia and the world’s second largest railway under a single management. The railways are among the leading passenger carriers in the world, running close to 11,000 trains everyday, including 7,000 passenger trains. Given such numbers, ticket reservation is a major task. Information technology has provided  a state-of-the-art system which enables computerized railway booking from around 300 locations across the country including places such as Srinagar, Port Blair, Shillong, and Panjim which do not have a direct rail link. The Passenger Reservation System (PRS) was started in 1985 as a pilot project in New Delhi. Thereafter, several versions of the software have been developed for improving the facilities provided to travellers. By 1999, CONCERT (Country-Wide Network For Computerized Enhanced Reservation And Ticketing), a new on-line Passenger Reservation System developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems, New Delhi was made operational in all the five main regional centres of   the country. This PRS network now enables reservations in any train, for any date or class, between any pair of stations on about 2000 terminals across the country. An Internet-based enquiry system for information on train time-tables and status of passenger reservation is already operational. A National Train Enquiry System (NTES) for disseminating real-time information regarding passenger train running has also been started. The computerised reservation system of the Indian Railways today covers 92 per cent of their reservation requirements. The facility is now available at 705 computerised reservation centres all over the country, providing close to a million reservations every day. Governance The IT Way IT for Irrigation In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, e-governance is the route to serving people better. Procedures that used to take the average citizen a few days now take only a few hours. For instance, CARD (Computer-aided Administration of Registration Department) enables digital registration of property in 214 Sub-Registrars’ offices across Andhra Pradesh, leading to faster, easier and transparent property registration process. It also provides accurate calculation of stamp duty across the counter,   thus eliminating delay and corruption. Andhra Pradesh State-Wide Area Network (APSWAN) is the backbone network for voice, data, and video communication throughout the state.  Through APSWAN, government officials of various departments in the capital city of Hyderabad can monitor the rural areas, without actually having to go there.  Monitoring is done through video conferences on a regular basis, and the officials at various villages and towns brief the centre of developments or any problems they are facing.   Local communities also participate in this communication. Irrigation is crucial to an agricultural country like India. The use of IT for improved management of canal irrigation has been successfully tried in the Khadakwasla Irrigation Scheme in Maharashtra through a joint pilot project between the Department of Information Technology of the Government of India and the state government of Maharashtra. The management system involves a telemetry system and an irrigation management system linked together for optimal usage of water. The telemetry system acquires rea-time data through a VHF radio-based communication network. Identified locations on the canal provide information about canal flow; the data on river flow is provided by sites at identified places on the river; the agromet site gives data on rainfall, evaporation and other agroclimatic parameters; and the reservoir site gives the data on reservoir storage levels monitored at two storage dams and one pick-up dam. The telemetry system is integrated with the irrigation management system installed at the Controlling Division Office. This system has helped in detailed scheduling of the main canal operation. The potential savings of water have reached  5 to 10 per cent in Phase I of the project, with greater potential in the coming phases . The technique is being replicated in several irrigation canal systems in other states, including Teesta canal in West Bengal, Nagarjunasagar canal in Andhra Pradesh and Tungabhadra canal in Karnataka.