India Mobile Congress 2020
 Shaping Sustainable Digital Future through Telecom and Technology
10.12.2020

Here are my interventions at this event as a panellist: 

A. On the subject of How Digital Communications can contribute towards the achievement of SDGs and is there any change in perspective on account of the pandemic.

If there is one thing that we have learned from the ongoing pandemic it would be that digital connectivity is absolutely essential. In a situation where you are physically separated and distanced only digital connectivity can ensure business continuity and socio-economic stability and growth. Work from home, study from home, shop from home, remote monitoring of health and logistics and smart factories etc., all these are impossible without quality connectivity.

Further, the pandemic has also underlined that this inevitable requirement of digital connectivity also exacerbates the implications of digital divides. The digital have nots really suffer. The efforts of the Government to reach out and alleviate the problems of people in crisis too can be frustrated if they are not digitally connected.

I can tell you that post the pandemic, there is a strong and renewed emphasis on both tapping ICTs for better citizen services, health and education, logistics and agriculture etc. and also on universal digital connectivity.

Even in the absence of the pandemic, there has been a huge emphasis on digital connectivity & ICT as is evident from the vision of Digital India and the Government’s emphasis on digital financial inclusion, digital identity, digital education and health, the Direct Benefit Transfer Mission and the underlying ICT infrastructure. Now we have a new Digital Health Mission and a commitment to connect all villages with fibre.

The release of the National Digital Communications Policy in 2018, the emphasis on BharatNet and the launch of the National Broadband Mission are all on account of the clear relationship between ICTs and the achievement of SDGs be they related to poverty or equality, health or education, employment or environment.

Telecom penetration has multiplier effects across the economy and in an increasingly digital future, it will be critical to enable expeditious achievement of SDGs. Each line of action to achieve an SDG has a digital counterpart. Thus if regional disparities are sought to be reduced by targeting 115 Aspirational Districts, The Deptt.  of Telecom has special schemes to provide connectivity to the Aspirational Districts. This is because ICTs are fundamental for other government efforts to fructify.

 And of course all the SDGs are related. Thus, smart agriculture and logistics can help to end hunger, digital health and education can directly impact the related SDGs but also end poverty and reduce gender disparities. Better land and water management through ICTs and sustainable development through smart grids can help reduce natural disasters which otherwise aggravate poverty and inequalities.

Digital connectivity is a great transparency enhancer and can give citizens a voice and provide a much-needed feedback loop to inform policymaking. It can thus empower citizens and strengthen justice.

In particular, I am a great believer in the power of digital connectivity to reduce inequality and bring about gender parity. We have heard of the adverse impact of the pandemic on women. Women’s education, employment and safety can all be greatly enhanced through digital connectivity. Even today, female ownership of mobiles or digital literacy is very low. Further, accessible ICTs hold great promise for persons with disabilities are needed to care for the aged especially in situations like the ongoing pandemic.

 B.  On What can be Done to Hasten Connectivity?

There are many fronts on which this problem is being tackled and can be tackled.

First connectivity must be universal. We still have a very skewed penetration. Rural broadband penetration lags at around 30% of the population and even teledensity is less than 60%. Then as mentioned earlier there is the question of equal access for women and Persons with Disabilities. This requires affordable devices, accessible devices and digital literacy.

Second is the quality of our broadband. We still lag behind on speed. We have an average speed of about 12MBPS against an ambitious target in the National Broadband Mission of delivering  50 MBPS.

There are major problems in the deployment of telecom infrastructure due to Right of Way issues. These need to be tackled. At present less than 40% of our towers are fiberized and we need many more towers. The national Broadband Mission aims to almost double the number of towers. Adequate spectrum must be made available to improve quality and allow for new technologies and innovation.

 If we are to tap the benefits of 5G, Artificial Intelligence, robotics, augmented reality and Virtual Reality to make use of innovative new applications across socio-economic sectors we need to address these issues. New telecom technologies have very different deployment architecture and the regulatory the environment must keep pace.

 Then we have an over-reliance on terrestrial communications and especially mobile broadband. We need multi-modal connectivity for redundancy and ubiquity. We cannot expect to provide broadband connectivity to 100% rural and remote areas through only terrestrial means. We must strengthen and expand our satellite broadband sector.

NITI Aayog is working with DoT to expedite the implementation of BharatNet through Public Private Partnership which would give a greater role to the private sector thereby also ensuring induction of the latest technology and greater uptake or usage.

NITI Aayog is similarly supporting the National Broadband Mission.

We have worked with DoT on Right of Way issues to expedite fibre rollouts and telecom infrastructure deployment. On the one hand, states and local authorities and on the other hand Central Government Ministries like Railways, Highways, Power and Natural Gas, Environment and Forest etc. need to accept the criticality of telecom infrastructure and actively facilitate its roll out.

As a part of the National Broadband Mission, DoT is creating a Broadband Readiness Index for states which would measure infrastructure availability and positive policy environment and this should hopefully sensitize them in this regard.  Broadband for All is a national imperative.

 We are also aiding them to open up the satellite communications sector so as to spread broadband to rural and remote areas, ensure robust multimodal connectivity and to tap the full potential of IoTs and location based services.

The whole regulatory environment for telecom needs to be conducive to greater investment, innovation and rapid deployment.  

There needs to be considerable simplification of the licensing regime. Greater ease of doing business and a more technology-neutral approach are the need of the hour.  Complicated ex-ante systems need to be replaced with Trust based authorizations combined with effective deterrence.

A case in point is the recent very progressive change in Other Service Provider Licensing regime which will greatly benefit our IT services sector and facilitate remote working. This was a case of the pandemic highlighting the need for changes which may otherwise have taken a long time to materialize.

We should use this crisis to bring about many other such reforms. For example, the pandemic highlighted the need for online recharges, universality of smartphones, and nationwide ration cards and subsidy transferability.

I believe that India’s Universal Service Obligation Fund too can be used to much greater effect to encourage infrastructure creation and innovative new schemes for universal broadband connectivity. Its Rules allow for this and it has the required corpus.

The pandemic has also heightened the need for secure and resilient communications which means enhancing our presence in global supply chains and greater participation in IPR and standard-setting as far as advanced telecom technologies are concerned.

In summary, I can assure you that while there was always a huge push towards digital connectivity and applications and awareness of their impact.There is now a strong and renewed emphasis on this critical aspect of national development.

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Digital Literacy and the Huge untapped Demand for Internet in Rural India

An article in the Financial Express titled "Time to Push the Pedal" highlights yet again the huge potential of imparting digital training to rural Indians including grown ups and particularly women. 

My own experience with USOF India's project for ICT facilities and skills  for women is exactly as stated in this article. Parents/mothers in rural India and even ultra conservative states would like their daughters to educate themselves and seek employment as a means of financial independence. For that purpose alone they would happily embrace a tool like the internet which provides convenient access to information and knowledge on a vast range of topics from online courses, university admissions to entrance exams and job opportunities. Please see my post titled " Special Initiatives, ICTs for Women" under the label ICTs for Women. My articles on this scheme may also be seen at 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2103235

and

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=230247

Needless to say along with supply side measures like broadband infrastructure, local language content and useful applications, efforts to precipitate demand as envisaged in India's National ICT policies are of critical importance. While doing so we must focus on adult education and ensure inclusion of women and the disabled.

The Importance of Being Connected

I quote below from two studies.They highlightsthe importance of connectivity for political, social and economic development and underline how ICTs help bridge the lack of infrastructure in developing countries, thereby contributing to citizens' empowerment and growth.

The first is  "Measuring the Impact of Broadband on Income" by Ericsson. The second is a study by Vodafone Institute for Society & Communications titled "Mobile Technologies the Digital Fabric of our Lives."   The first study focuses on impact of broadband access and speed on income. It indicates inter alia that for Brazil, China & India(BIC), even a 0.5 Mb broadband connections increases household income by USD 800 per annum. Further, "[i]n  BIC countries, upgrading from 0.5 to 4 Mbps increases income by USD 46 per month." (Access to more sophisticated services " boosts personal productivity and teleworking and telecommuting allow for more flexible work arrangements."

A longer quote (below) from the second study reiterates the importance of mobile phones which continue to predominate in countries like India with very low fixed line penetration.

"In developing countries, mobile phones have changed everyday lives for many people. Often, mobile phones are the only accessible and functioning infrastructure. As a result, it is unsurprising that people have become inventive by using their mobile phones to replace or create other societal and economic institutions thatwere inefficient or sometimes non-existent. M-Pesa, for instance, has enabled millions of Kenyans to transfer money without having to travel. It is the most successful mobile banking service in the world, but by far not the only one: around the globe, more than 150 mobile banking systems have been introduced, mainly in developing countries. A similar pattern was found regarding the impact of mobile phone subscriptions on social development. 

• [M]odels show that more mobile phone subscriptions correlate with more democratic participation, less gender inequality and more time in education. Our results support this evidence on the macro-level across a sample of 202 countries. They show a significant relationship between the number of mobile phone subscriptions and the voice and accountability index, which is taken as a proxy for democratisation. This relationship is more pronounced in developing countries as there is naturally more scope for improvement in relation to political participation. 
• Women and girls are often the most vulnerable members of communities in developing countries. Their access to the outer world is often very limited and they have to cope with numerous hurdles. First and foremost, they have to ensure the health and well-being of their families and changing their traditionally assigned roles is often the only way forward. The connectedness and   communication without intervention by (male) others can facilitate such a change and reduce gender inequality. Our model across 148 countries supports this idea based on macro-economic data. It shows that with increasing mobile phone subscriptions gender inequality decreases. Again, the effect is most visible in developing countries.
• Mobile phones can have two major types of effects on education:the most direct impact is the use of education via SMS texts or mobile applications, which can reach children as well as adults tend to be larger in developing countries. 
•  In practice, mobile phones fill the gap that other poor or non-existent infrastructure in these countries leave wide open. It is therefore not surprising that many innovations related to mobile phones are adopted more quickly in developing countries than in developed countries. 
• Finally, mobile phones are often the first and only way of communication without having to travel under difficult circumstances. 

Broadband for Sustainable Development

Sustainable development demands that economic growth is inclusive and balanced in terms of trade offs between short term gains and long term consequences.

Broadband Commission's new report,  “Transformational solutions for 2015 and Beyond"  explores the importance of broadband for sustainable growth. It states that,

" while national broadband plans increasingly recognize broadband’s role in socio-economic development, much more needs to be done to support this ‘invisible technology’ transforming our world. A regulatory environment that encourages widely accessible and affordable broadband deployment is the only way to realize its potential to advance sustainable development – for example through proactive policy on spectrum and the protection of inventions.

As far as comprehensiveness of National Broadband Plans goes, the figure below is telling

Inclusion of Socio-Economic Elements in National Broadband Plans 2013

Encouragingly more and more countries include education, employment and health as important elements in national broadband plans. However, the lack of emphasis on universalizing access is evident from the last 4-5 bars. Broadband cannot work its magic unless it is universally accessible, relevant and affordable.

The report makes 10 recommendations to fully leverage the potential of broadband in this regard:

1. Make ICT and high speed broadband universally available at affordable cost for all.

2. Ensure that ICT and broadband are embedded in all of the universal goals and national targets to be defined as part of the Post-2015 global development agenda to fully capture transformative, sustainable solutions.

3. Deploy national development policies and plans to actively drive cross-sector integration of economic and social outcomes deliverable and scalable through ICT and broadband.

4. Create a streamlined and enabling regulatory environment for the broadband era that accelerates removal of barriers to market entry for broadband ICT uptake.

5. Provide consumer incentives and harness government procurement to drive demand and stimulate private sector innovation and investment.

6. Twin broadband innovation and investment with sustainable multi-stakeholder business models to capitalize on the transformative potential of universal ICT

7. Drive the game-changing potential of mobile broadband through the optimized use of radioelectrical frequency spectrum for universal ICT for development penetration

8. Promote the utilization of global standards to enable the harmonization and interoperability of ICT and broadband-enabled services and applications, putting special emphasis on affordability and accessibility.

9. Establish a comprehensive monitoring framework for broadband deployment and robust accountability mechanisms to track development progress via industry-wide broadband ICT metrics and indicators.

10. Develop appropriate solutions to maximize resource mobilization, innovation and investment in broadband for both developed and developing countries.

The report also analyse broadband's actual and potential role in achieving sustainable development goals such as ending poverty, hunger and gender inequality and provides best practices from across the globe.  

Please also see previous posts on National Broadband Plans and Broadband Ecosystemhttp://ictsforall.blogspot.in/search/label/Broadband%20Ecosystem

The Oldest Item in the US Basket-Still Indispensable

An article in the Times of India on 8.9.13 titles "As PCOs hang up, distress calls drop" highlights the importance of public calling offices (PCOs) or pay phones as thet are called in some parts of the world. It is said that ever since the number PCOs are in decline, the number of calls being received from distressed children on the government funded Child Helpline has decreased sharply. As many of these children would be orphans, homeless or from marginalized segments of society, the Helpline would have been a lifeline of sorts to report mistreatment or to locate shelter. It is suggested that the solution lies in installing free phones to the child hotline. 

In India the Village Public Telephone (VPT) schemes were the first to be launched by the Universal Service Obligation Fund and have now been discontinued. As private PCOs outpaced the USOF subsidized in numbers and quality of service this was the right thing to do. However, the government does need to ensure the availability of PCOs in both rural and urban areas. 

One option could be to install purely government/CSR funded phones which can dial all types of public /welfare related hotlines and emergency services. These phones should also be equipped with assistive technologies to make them disabled friendly.This would serve the public well and is a worthy cause for USOF to espouse and support. The revenue earned from calls could meet some of the installation and maintenance costs.

ICTs for Rural Healthcare

I had written recently about USA's refurbished rural healthcare programme and that Indian USOF could study the same for guidance on do's and dont's.

A very inspiring example of use of ICTs for rural healthcare, in this case maternity and neo natal healthcare is reported in an article "ASHA 2.0: Barmer block’s healing touch on tablets."

ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers in rural Rajasthan's Barmer district have been equipped with tablets which are helping them and the beneficiaries of the Governments's health benefits programme to better track maternal health while also generating interest in ICTs in rural women. Rajasthan is one of the  very conservative state of India.

My own experience with the Sanchar Shakti project was that rural women take  to ICTs  very rapidly with great benefits. One of the projects is being implemented in Ajmer district of Rajasthan  where rural women are keen as any other to improve their and their daughters' lot through information and ICT enabled  services. A full description of the implementation experience so far may be read at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2302471.

News about a USOF Mobile Handset Scheme

It has been reported that USOF India may fund a scheme wherein mobile handsets are given to female members of poor rural households who have completed 100 days of work under India's rural employment guarantee scheme-MNREGA. Eligible beneficiaries would be identified by the state administration and handsets bundled with connectivity and m-government content such as health records and entitlements transfers would be provided by the USP chosen either through bidding or on nomination basis. Present USOF Rules would require choice of USP by bidding.

While the focus on women and m-government is welcome, I am not sure that mobile handsets are needed to be subsidized. It is the connectivity and content that USOF could focus on instead. If these are available, handsets (even second/third hand) would be purchased in any case. It is however a fact today that rural women may not own handsets. This was noticed during the implementation of USOF's Sanchar Shakti scheme. 

USOF may have to think of adequate safeguards to prevent transfer of the phone to non beneficiaries and false claims by USPs as implementing such schemes can be  administratively very challenging.

All Women BPOs in Conservative Indian States-ICTs for Women

The potential of ICTs to empower women inspired us in USOF to implement the highly successful Sanchar Shakti intiative. Sanchar Shakti  improves the target beneficiaries' confidence levels and financial independence by helping them with knowledge and market inputs related to their on going entrepreneurial activities. 

Rural Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs) is another example of the successful use of ICTs to empower rural women. While rural and semi urban BPOs in the Southern states of India do employ women, the engagement of women in ultra conservative Northern states like Haryana (HarVa) and Rajasthan (SFC)  is remarkable and demonstrates the power of ICTs to transform lives and societies. In both cases it was tough to get the women who had never even seen computers and whose activities outside their homes are strictly monitored by their men folk to even try out the initial training. However, the improvement in a family's financial  status while the women are still close to home, can be a powerful motive to allow the women to experience the empowering impact of working outside the home. ICTs can make this possible.

Stories in this regard can be seen at 

http://www.rediff.com/getahead/slide-show/slide-show-1-achievers-the-inspiring-story-of-a-bpo-in-rajasthan/20130718.htm#4

and 

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-11-10/news/27587068_1_women-in-rural-areas-business-process-outsourcing-suman-devi

This makes a strong argument for an all out effort to promote universal access to broadband focusing especially on mainstreaming digitally excluded segments like women and the disabled.

M Education and the Demographic Dividend

Two interesting news items caught my attention and I though these are worth sharing and reading.

The first is "Mobilising  Education in India" which highlights the potential of mobile screens to impart education in developing countries. India is a young country with 54% of the population being under 25.  In fact India is often cited as an example of the demographic dividend whereby the larger relative share of working age population has the potential to progress the economy to higher rates of growth.

In the near future India will be the largest individual contributor to the global demographic transition. A 2011 International Monetary Fund Working Paper found that substantial portion of the growth experienced by India since the 1980s is attributable to the country’s age structure and changing demographics. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that India will surpass China as the world’s largest country by 2025, with a large proportion of those in the working age category. Over the next two decades the continuing demographic dividend in India could add about two percentage points per annum to India’s per capita GDP growth.[ Extreme actions are needed to take care of future basic minimum living standards including food, water and energy. As per Population Reference Bureau India's population in 2050 is projected to be 1.692 billion people. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_dividend)

Quality education is critical for this existing/potential labour force. With schools and teacher availability being below par and computer penetration being very poor (Only 80 million personal computers in a nation of 1.2 billion population), we can take advantage of the affordability and ubiquity of smart phones as a medium for delivery of text, voice and video based educational content. The affinity that youth has for ICT enabled information and entertainment is a major plus point. 

This brings to to the second news item of interest titled "Making the Most of Mobiles" This article points out that even in the absence of internet,(only 12% of the 38 million internet users in India can access internet on their mobiles), micro secure digital (SD) cards are used to a good amount of store music and video on second/third hand smart phones by even poor labourers. This indicates that large variety of content can be made available even offline and the is a huge market potential in this area.

The increasing trend of educational material from even top universities being available free of cost is an opportunity waiting to be tapped. In India's case, ensuring affordability of smart phones, better & affordable connectivity (and in the interim  availability of content offline) and translation of content to local languages would be key requirements for us to reap the benefits of M-education.This would also be true of many developing countries.

Another wonderful thing about mobile education in my view is that with a little effort it can be made accessible to persons with disabilities. In fact mobile content is a powerful tool of empowerment of PwDs as long as its accessibility is ensured. 

USFs across the developing world would do well to concentrate of creating an enabling environment for M-Education. India has made a start with Sanchar Shakti but we need to do more.

Mobile VAS as a means of Mpowerment

I have already written about Indian USOF’s Sanchar Shakti programme. This programme has been instrumental in bringing highly customized  knowledge inputs to rural women’s Self Help Groups through mobile VAS helping them improve their livelihoods, self confidence and social standing. The uniqueness of this programme lies in its ability to reach out to these women in situ i.e. in their villages and homes and in that the content being delivered to them is gender sensitive and in the local language. Sanchar Shakti includes many woman farmers in its purview. Its gender specificity makes it a very unique programme in a country which still does not give enough importance to  the fact that many small holdings are farmed by women, while the men folk seek jobs on construction sites/urban areas.

Other  recent  initiatives include the soon to be launched Kisan portal for framers in India wherein 'SMS advisories and alerts will enable farmers to take informed decisions relating to different aspects of farming including crop production and marketing, animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries.' It has also been stated that, 'Officers of various departments, experts and scientists in research institution and in the field will use this portal for disseminating information, giving topical and seasonal advisories to farmers in their local languages.'

A simple form of communication like mobile SMS can be a powerful tool for empowerment of two way communication between the government and  target beneficiaries in a country where mobile penetration is strong while fixed line and broadband penetration is abysmal especially in rural areas. mVAS can provide knowledge and market information in situations where access to both is difficult on account of poor infrastructure and facilities.

A  news item titled Mobile Phone-Medically Yours describes the innovative use of mobile phones by the Government to reduce maternal and infant mortality by training health workers and providing tools for data collection and knowledge dissemination. Like Sanchar Shakti, here too the content is in the local language. What is particularly noteworthy in the case of the mobile Kunji  programme described in this article is revenue sharing between the NGOs, Government and service providers demonstrating  the commercial viability of such beneficial applications. This is also one of the aims of the Sanchar Shakti programme

Special Initiatives-ICTs for Rural women

In my very first post I had mentioned that USFs need to devise schemes to meet needs of specially disadvantaged groups and address demand side gaps.  I had alluded to USOF, India's special initiatives by way of pilot programmes to bring the benefits of ICTs to rural  women and the disabled. Today I will cover the former.

We in USOF labelled our project for women Sanchar Shakti. This name signifies the synergies to be achieved by empowering  women with  communications while recognizing the inherent importance and power of women. This scheme  aims to provide a highly customized bundle of relevant information and mobile value added services (mVAS ) to the rural SHGs to suit their unique cultural and socio-economic context.

Given the capacity of telecommunications services to deliver valuable information, impart education, connect with markets and supply essential citizen services, while transcending economic, social, cultural, physical and literacy barriers it is apparent that ICTs can make a significant contribution to the lives of rural women. From the very beginning, we were clear about our objectives. We wanted our projects to empower rural women in a manner that would enrich their personal lives while bringing about a sustainable change in their economic position.  

Our early discussions with stakeholders made it clear that given the strength of the Self Help Group (SHG) based model for positive interventions; our efforts must focus on rural women’s SHGs in rural India. We strove to educate ourselves and our project applicants about the needs of our target beneficiaries and thus the correct design for our projects so as to best address their requirements. In this journey we were competently assisted by NGOs dealing with women’s SHGs, gender experts from U.N Women (now UNIFEM) and telecommunications service providers. They helped us decide the broad contours of the scheme which were later refined to a project application template. The scheme was however kept open and flexible allowing plenty of scope for innovation and customisation. We went through a very lengthy process of shortlisting and refining the project proposals we received in collaboration with stakeholders with USOF playing a patient, supportive role of active facilitation role.

It is felt that the huge amount of time and effort that we put into multiple rounds of meetings and thorough proof of concept (PoC) roll outs has eventually resulted in four genuinely valuable projects that will have a positive and permanent impact on the gender equity and ICTs scenario in the covered rural areas. The four projects cover about 10,000 SHG members in 10 districts in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh Other projects may follow. These four projects focus on breaking the dependence on intermediaries when it comes to access to input and final product markets for SHGs engaged in cottage industries. The SHGs themselves are engaged in multifarious activities ranging from  handicrafts to agricultural/livestock rearing. Information on weather, crop/livestock diseases, markets and market prices, training courses, raw material /inputs etc. are covered in these mobile VAS bundles. Also covered are inputs on literacy, child and maternal health, pertinent government programmes, social issues such as domestic violence, child marriage, dowry etc. It is hoped that our initiatives will encourage the greater use of mVAS/ICTs in the delivery women-specific government services and influence the private sector to look beyond voice services for rural India. 

What has been truly heartening is the tremendous increase in self-confidence of the beneficiaries as observed during the three to six month period that they were in touch with USOF during the Proof of Concept stage. There is no doubt that these women are truly hard working and contribute greatly to family income and well-being through their dedicated hard work including entrepreneurial activities. The Sanchar Shakti project gave them a source of information, a voice with which to express their aspirations and a hope to enhance their knowledge, contribution and self-worth as earning members of society. They quickly mastered the use of the mobile device and interacted enthusiastically with USOF, NGOs and Service Providers to demand the particular information and services that they needed. They demonstrated an amazing capacity to use data and knowledge to enhance their skills and incomes even in the short span of a month in which the projects were test run to prove concept.

The approach adopted for the Sanchar Shakti Scheme is very different from the usual competitive bidding model of PPPs. The legal framework of USOF allows pilot projects to be exempt from the mandatory bidding process for selection of service providers. This proved to be important in the case of Sanchar Shakti as it enabled USOF to allow diverse stakeholders  much needed time to find each other to partner in these projects. In fact USOF Administration played an important role by transparently placing information on interested parties on their website to allow mVAS providers, Equipment Manufacturers, Service Providers and NGOs to approach each other. In particular NGOs dealing with rural SHGs and the former three stakeholders are not natural partners and without USOF intervention it is doubtful if they would have found each other. As mentioned earlier, each project went through a lengthy design phase wherein USOF and U.N Women assisted the  private partners in development of gender appropriately VAS packages to deliver content identified by NGO partners in consultation with SHG members. Given that Sanchar Shakti’s consultative and iterative methodology was very different from traditional bidding, due care was taken to maintain complete transparency by placing details of all meetings and stages of consultation/project formulation on the USOF website. In the absence of the same it may have been difficult to pass muster as far as the government’s legal and financial vetting and approval processes are concerned. 

It is felt that for delivery of public services aimed at disadvantaged groups such as rural women, the consultative, collaborative, bottom up PPP approach of Sanchar Shakti is very valuable. It is not possible to carry out such schemes in a rigid, structured top down manner. For one thing the stakeholders involved are multiple and diverse and for another such programmes demand intensive customization and localisation. Sanchar Shakti’s success can be emulated for similar efforts towards other segments of society such as the disabled in rural India. In fact a USOF attempt to follow bidding for schemes for disabled did not meet with much success for exactly these reasons. 

It is added that Sanchar Shakti is subject to systematic reporting and monitoring & evaluation requirements as in case of other USOF OBA projects.

Details of the Scheme can be seen at  http://www.usof.gov.in/usof-cms/gender.htm