By Satyabrata Acharyya
The Covid pandemic has been harsh on every country globally; over 122 million people in India lost their jobs in 2020. This included 91% small traders and labourers, 18.2% entrepreneurs, and 17.8% salaried persons. Rural India has not been spared from the impact of the Covid pandemic, farmers have not been able to sell their crops due to prolonged lockdown. Work under MGNREGA had also been discontinued during the peak employment period.
However, the Covid pandemic had unleashed the potential of digital in India and across the globe. While urban India got connected digitally in the last two years, with people adapting to the new normal of remote working; digital witnessed its deeper integration in rural India too.
On one hand, the work structure in urban and metro cities got integrated with audio/ video conferences; on the other hand, there has been a key shift in the community engagement model in rural India. Many social development organizations explored innovative ways of reaching out to communities using digital technology. The digital integration in rural India has also been bolstered due to the government’s digital India drive. Increased smartphone penetration, which stands at 53% (As per recent reports) and cost-effective internet helped rural India meet the lockdown challenges with a degree of confidence.
Hundreds and thousands of farmers have been trained digitally in the last two years so that they could meet the challenges of selling their harvests. Grassroots NGOs connected with rural people over digital platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet, training them digitally through audio-visual aids and PowerPoint presentations as also through the circulation of information-education-communication (IEC) materials, using the WhatsApp platform.
PRADAN alone had trained over 4,000 community cadres, to support households in agriculture/crop planning, conducting agronomic training, and offering crop advisory. Community radio, Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) for creating awareness on the adoption of sustainable foods have been used extensively to keep the cultivation-related activities rolling for the farmers.
Community workers had used in-depth telephonic interviews to understand the impact of the pandemic on various livelihood activities and accordingly designed digital training to bridge knowledge gaps. A number of digital applications were devised and strengthen community connections in remote villages.
The KOBO Toolbox-based online app is one such example, which was adopted to conduct comprehensive livelihood planning for over 2.00 lakh rural households. Agriculture Entrepreneurs (AEs) were trained to collect and analyse the data. With the growing use of smartphones in remoter pockets of the country and people’s familiarity with touch screens and online apps, it became easier to provide training to these AEs.
There are several splendid examples of how India used its expertise in digital technology for governance and for the benefit of its people. The use of fintech-based tools, Aadhaar card-linked Direct Benefit Transfers, cashless payment platforms, payment wallets have been increasingly encouraged to push India towards a fast-moving, digitally-driven, and cashless contactless country. The next stage of digital evolution in India, would not have been possible without connecting rural India digitally.
Both the government and private players in the social development sector worked persistently to meet the livelihood challenges brought by Covid.
The fast-growing digital infrastructure will narrow the digital divide further and provide a robust platform to embark on more inclusive and rapid growth in the times ahead.
(Satyabrata Acharyya is the Integrator at Pradan)
