Inclusive development and Technology

Though the title may read like some sort of continuation of PMs independence day speech, the fact that this topic has garnered so much attention from the PM itself speaks of its importance. Many people who live in posh metropolitans like Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, etc sometimes fail to understand why PM is giving so much importance to such issues like providing clean water to everyone, or making every girl in villages go to school while there are other burning issues like the increasing traffic, delay in metro rail project in their city, etc which were more worthy of his attention. I agree that they are not mistaken in demanding for solutions of these problems which they face in day to day life, but they should also try to see things from the point of view of the PM of the country where 70% of the population still lives in villages. These peole lack many such basic requirements of life which people in urban areas take as granted.

Having spent almost 18 years of my life in villages and rural areas, i can see why the PM and the policy makers of the country give so much importance to inclusive development. In my village itself, which is one of the economically better villages in the area (thanks to the coal industry in the area), people still don’t get clean water to drink. If you get up early in the morning, and go on a walk on the country side, you could see people defecating near the village pond sitting in a line. Though the school provides free education, people don’t send their girls to study. Instead young girls are made to work as domestic helps in houses so that some extra bucks could be added to the family income.

And don’t try to generalise by saying that the people in rural areas are like that because they are idiots. You would be surprised to know that they are as brand concious as any modern consumer is, and they would kill for modern technology. One of the things on the basis of which i can say this is just seeing the range of cell phones these people carry. Its not that they carry the cellphones, just to talk. They are well aware of the bluetooth file transferring, multimedia players and the resolution of pictures taken by the cameras embedded in the phone. They dig technology totally.

The problem is that this happens only for a few families which has managed to come up economically, by some chance event. This is not the general story of the village. Most people still continue to live their old ways of life, with no support from the government or any local help groups.

There is a big opportunity unexplored, waiting in the heart of India. If we can make technologies which are able to help these people or provide them assistance in using technology to improve their lives, it would create a society in which all sections are able to share the benefits of their technological progress. It would be a growth which is inclusive and i see technology playing a big role in enabling this in the days to come.

So why not developers instead of making the next cool app for the yet to be launched Palm-Pre, try developing a software which can be used for educating villagers in a way which they can understand. Why not build a faecal disposal system, which is affordable enough that people in rural areas can bring it in use, instead of designing the “stop-using-your-hands” toilets. Of course, one reason is the general belief that rural people can’t pay. That’s why corporations don’t envision any such projects.

But there are people who have been able to carve successful ventures out of their basic idea of supporting rural people.


1. Saloni Malhotra – She has been featured in the September issue of Outlook business for her firm Desicrew in which she employs people in the villages of Tamilnadu to provide BPO solutions. This doesn’t only empower the rural youth, but makes them more connected to the world outside.

2. Vijay Mahajan – He has been featured in the book “Stay Hungry Stay Foolish” by IIMA alumnus Rashmi Bansal for his for-profit organization Basix. He has shown how it is possible to empower rural people at the same time while posting profits for his publicly traded company.
These are just a few examples to show how things can be done.

The need is to replicate such efforts. Only when there are hundreds and thousands of such concerted efforts, would we be finally able to have a society in which all the sections are going hand in hand.