Cloud reaches rural India

If you think e-governance is all about electronic transactions in different ministries, it is time to reboot your thinking. New-age technologies like cloud are now being deployed in the rural hinterland of India too. German enterprise software maker SAP lays a lot of emphasis on the public sector globally and wants to do the same in India. A couple of months ago, it launched a unique project in a small desert village called Soda in Tonk district, Rajasthan. The project seeks to link residents with the best that technology has to offer: faster access to records and services, a stronger system of governance, and a virtual classroom in the centre of town. The German software major has now deployed a cloud based governance solution for a village panchayat in Shillong, Meghalaya.

Without computerised records, leaders of India's rural villages must rely on a bureaucracy that can be slow, onerous and lacking in transparency. In addition, with little access to education and training, many residents—including the young people who are needed to fuel a healthy local economy—are unemployed or unable to read and write.

In this backdrop, the German software vendor's efforts to take e-governance to Indian villages and its various initiatives to improve efficiencies in the country's government agencies are praise worthy.

Peter Gartenberg, managing director, SAP India says, "Cloud is still starting to develop in the public sector and is a relatively new thing for the government to adopt. We are trying to solve extreme cases in the rural areas of India by providing them cloud solutions. One such example is the work that we do for panchayats in handling land records. I agree that it is easier to reach a village in Punjab probably, but we want to reach the rural areas which are difficult to approach and want to help the panchayats administrate better." Going forward, he stresses that SAP will be going to even smaller and backward villages and will be helping them to govern better.

... contd.

ALSO READ

IT gives cities a ‘smart’ makeover

Yahoo Mail rebooted

What Indians are searching on Google Maps

Trialblazers