Technology for Rural India
India is surprisingly a dual society for rest of the world. Most of the Indian population lives in 600,000 villages with agriculture and related work as their main occupation. It is often felt that the developments in Science and Technology are impacting only a minimal percentage of population in the urban areas. The village economy demands for different aspects of improvements in their livelihood through science and technology. As against the urban consumer who voices his needs more effectively due to the purchasing power, while the rural consumer often tends to accept the available products and services. There are institutions like Centre for Sustainable technologies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore which has been doing a pioneering work from 1974 to bridge the bias in urban R&D. They have been working in the areas like bio-energy, water, renewable energy, and alternative building materials. There are similar other organizations working on various aspects of rural India. But still there exists a gap to identify other needs of the rural customer apart from the basic needs and amenities. Initiatives like PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) could bring electronic, physical and economic connectivity. Such initiatives are very essential for the sustainable development of the rural India. However still there is an unmet demand of rural consumers. Hence there is a business opportunity. The mindset would be to see the rural economy as a market for custom made products. Technologies are to be developed considering the Rural India specifically. Identifying the needs and bundling them into products would be an immense task for industries. Moreover the technologies required would be of different dimension and scale compared to urban consumer. For example an Urban Consumer might use Light Emitting Diode to illuminate the car (for power saving) while the rural consumer might use it for efficient usage of power available. The major areas of consideration would be agriculture / food processing, drinking water and sewage water management, low cost and continuous energy supply, efficient building materials, self diagnosis medical kits, all terrain transport vehicles and so on. Hence industry needs to work towards capturing a vast market which is there for taking by focusing part of their R&D efforts towards rural India. Various models have to be developed and tried by industry by embracing "Technology for Rural India". |
