• 1) Synthesis & Background:
  The project aims to leverage Information and Communication Technologies for Tribal Communities through Weekly Market Centres. SIRDI chose Sawalmendha village, a Weekly Market Centre in Bhainsdehi Tehsil of Betul district in Madhya Pradesh, for this purpose. The place also falls on the border of two states i.e. Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. A map of the area is attached at Annexure 1.
  Approximately 10,000 people from about 60 nearby villages gather for the weekly market every Monday, to purchase their essentials, sell their produce, carry out their bank operations, meet each other etc. Another 5000 visit it every Tuesday for the weekly cattle market. During the rest of the week, another 3000 to 5000 people visit Sawalmendha. Teenagers from nearby villages come there daily to attend high school and higher secondary school.
  Villagers thus cater to most of their day-to-day needs through the Weekly Market places. A map of the catchment areas of the weekly market places overlapping with Sawalmendha is attached at Annexure 2. They however face problems in dealing with government, markets, health-care and education systems as also other elements of the larger world.
  The project's developmental objectives were thus to:
  
• Allow a community (which has no internet facility and will not get it for another 5 years or so - this has unexpectedly changed since the start of the project due to transformation in India's telecom scenario) access to internet related services.
• Make available to the people a technology if not at their doorstep but at least at a place which they visit at least once in a week.
• Help get information through the internet at the minimum cost to them by reducing their travel time (which can be converted into wages equivalent) and their travel cost
• Help get the Government delivery systems closer to them through the internet

2) Research problem
The research objectives of the project were:
a) Technical

• To test whether the internet can be brought to remote communities.
• To check how internet technologies can be made to work in remote areas where there is no access to phone lines; technical support is missing; the power supply is non-existent and road network poor.
• To identify technologies (e.g. public address system) and systems complementary to the internet for more effectiveness in its use.

b) Social

• To identify areas where the internet can be used.
• To assess the impact of use of the internet on tribal community.
• To understand the social and psychological factors which influence use or non-use of internet technology.
• To check whether weekly markets can provide the base for "door-step" availability of access to the internet.
• To understand how the Government machinery responds to the use of this technology.
• To assess the economic benefit to the community

3) Research findings
To identify the information needs of the tribal communities and to test the awareness of computers amongst the villagers:

• The research team designed a Baseline Survey Form in the local language Hindi (an English translation is attached at Annexure 3).
• The team selected 10 out of 66 total villages that visit the Weekly Market for conducting the survey, on a judgement basis.
• They selected the villages based on their size, geographical location, developmental history as well as the community they represent. Some of the villages do not even have the transportation facilities. Some villages have mixed communities i.e. Gond and Korku Tribes (the major communities in the region where the project was/is carried out).
• The investigators chose ten respondents each from these villages, using a pre-defined quota system, duly segmenting along different demographic and socio-economic parameters.
• The team has coded (list of conventions attached at Annexure 4), entered and edited the data (spreadsheet attached at Annexure 5).
• The team will carry out a similar study at the end of the project, and tabulate the comparative data to assess the difference that the project has made to the villagers.

Since field activities are in the initial phase, it would be premature to make sweeping generalisations. A few tentative perceptions are set out below:

• We have understood that the last mile issue between the centre and the villager is critical, and are working on a mix of human semi-formal community chains/networks, third party form filling (English translation of form for requesting help attached at Annexure 6)
• Once their perceptions about the project are clear, and their skills in structuring requests built through training, are Illiteracy of saathins is no barrier to their acting as powerful last-mile elements for the purpose.
• Allowing people to put down their requests for help with no restrictions whatsoever leads to excellent insights into the priorities in their lives, which is useful and often eye-opening for a whole range of developmental actors
• Once a mutually cost and time effective channel between the people and government is built up, many of the traditional problems of communication gaps, slow work, corruption etc., can be sharply reduced.
• Internet based systems for interfacing between the poor and government cannot evolved from scratch, but must serve the purpose of further strengthening a manual system which has already been built up.

4) Fulfilment of objectives
Work on this aspect has just started, since we are at the stage of generating requests for help, establishing person-to-person links with the government, thus first setting up a manual liaison system, which is a prerequisite to subsequently automating it.
The developmental objectives of the project proposal were/are:
a) To leverage the Weekly Market Centre for fulfilling the needs of Tribal community-

• SIRDI's Multi Facility Centre established at Sawalmendha, now generates well over 100 requests per week, many of them handed in by villagers without moving out of their own villages, and others by visitors to the marketplace.

b) To use internet and communications technology for fulfilling information needs of tribal community and understand the problem areas:

• Computers & Power systems have been set up
• Software has been specially developed - the features are listed at Annexure 7.
• Software gives analysis of the problems covered
• Internet /email connection awaited till then manually being done
• Interfacing with Saathins
• Base line survey as complimentary to this

c) To save time and money of villagers for information needs-
Villagers have to visit either the nearest block headquarters Bhainsdehi or the district place Betul, to seek the smallest bit of information at a gross cost of Rs. 60/120 respectively. Since it often takes multiple trips to get work done, the actual costs can be 2-3 times this figure. It can go up sill further if they have to grease palms to get even routine certificates made out.
While we are going through our learning curve, the initial work is gratis. Even after we start charging, it will lead to a sharp reduction in their outgo of time and money.
Among the research objectives, one was relating to bringing the internet to remote communities.
There has been a sea change in the connectivity situation since the project was written. Due to sudden opening up of India's telecom and ISP sectors, Sawalmendha, which did not have properly functioning phone lines, now has an optical fibre system. While dial-up internet connections are still unavailable due to coordination problems at the telephone exchange, it seems to be a matter of a few weeks.
The emphasis on this research objective is thus significantly reduced. A telecom milestone sheet is attached at Annexure 8.
d) To research the feasibility of using ICT in harsh Rural and Tribal environment
We are using the computers in severe conditions such as lack of reliable power supply, lack of reliable phone lines.
The road here connects two districts, Betul and Amravati, and through them tow states.
There is thus a continuous flow of buses and trucks carrying goods spread out a lot of dust all over. Still there has not been any major breakdown in the systems.
We have also seen that, until the workload is light we are able to operate without a generator. This however will be difficult once the work gets into full swing, due to inadequate time availability for charging the inverters and UPS.
We have maintained a power log for almost 2 months; a typical weekly extract is attached at Annexure 9.
5) Project design and implementation
The project works in an action research mode, focusing on achieving success with respect to the developmental objectives, and in the process generating transactional, and observational data to address the research objectives. The process is complemented by surveys, group discussions in the village and with government etc.
The following individuals are providing useful professional inputs for the project:

• Dr. Upma Diwan - Insights into dealing with villagers and government officials, especially Sathins, Administration of the Project
• Dr. D. K Sharma - as above, plus conceptualisation about functional micro-communities
• Rahul Bhimjiani - dealing with government, sustainability inputs, setting up workflow systems
• Ajay Kumar - Technical Coordination, Software Development, Trouble Shooting, Planning, Technical specs for Purchases etc.
• Binay Kumar - Setting up the last mile information networks in the village
• Prashant Koranne - Generating transactional data through software, logbooks, registers etc. Generation of operational insights arising out of day-to-day coordination of the project

Other consultants and advisors adding value to the project by providing links, resources and ideas to the project:
Drs. S. S. Chakravarty and Shekhar Borgaonkar, S/Shri Shubhranshu Chowdhury, Guru Dutt and Yogesh Andlay, & Smt. Smita Chowdhary
The implementation part of the project had following key parts:

• To set-up the necessary infrastructure at Sawalmendha and the district place Betul after selecting and buying suitable equipment
• To understand the exact information needs of the Tribal Communities
• To develop Suitable software
• To establish a communication network between villagers and the staff at Sawalmendha so that the information needs of the villagers are met within minimum possible time.

To meet the infrastructure needs:

• A place was hired in the market area, which could easily be sited by any visitor
• The necessary equipment such as computers, power-backup instruments (as the place does not get the regular power supply even for a few hours a day) was purchased and installed.
• The machines were tested thoroughly so as to work in the harsh rural conditions
• The necessary security measurements were taken care of
• For entering the information requests of the villagers in the computer, special software was designed
• The highlight of the software being, all the inputs and outputs were/are in local language so that local people can access it

The centre at Sawalmendha was named as "Multi Facility Centre" (MFC), termed as "Vividh Soochna Kendra" in Hindi, the local link language.
We are also using the internet facilities at SIRDI's Behiram campus for internet up linking, since it is connected to servers in Mahrashtra, unlike the project area in Madhya Pradesh, and is thus operational.
Data is transferred back and forth by floppies carried on local buses daily, and is not proving to be problematic till date. Once the Sawalmendha link becomes operational, this facility will serve as a back up.
Nodes at Betul/Bhainsdehi were to be set up as part of the project to:

• Receive complaints or queries on email from the Sawalmendha Centre
• Follow-up & send back the info against the query to Sawalmendha by email

Since the internet connection is not yet functional at Sawalmendha, we have not thought it proper to set up the infrastructure yet. Moreover, the conditions at Bhainsdehi are similar to that of Sawalmendha as far as internet connectivity is concerned. Therefore, that has been a dampener for not spending on rent and other expenses until now. However, efforts are on to identify the housing space, buy equipment and arrange to set up the node soon after starting of internet at Sawalmendha.
Until this happens, the project team is travelling to Bhainsdehi & Betul to follow-up on the inquiries in non-cyber mode.
Using personal networks to get the initial liaison work done in these places also helps to create the base upon which a superstructure of automation can be erected. The arrangements are to be formalised in due course.
For establishing the communication network between the villagers and the office at Sawalmendha-

• Two women were selected from every village
• The selected women were termed as "Saathins" (meaning companions)
• The Saathins were given training for two days at the Sawalmendha ICT centre (The module of the training is given at Annexure 10)
• They were made to understand that they are to work as the catalyst between the Community and the ICT centre
• By the time this report was/is being written a total of 73 Saathins covering 41 villages have been trained in 4 batches
• Some educated Saathins are being trained in typewriting, to empower them to do Data Entry directly in due course.

A last batch comprising of Saathins from the remaining villages, who could not attend earlier modules as scheduled, due to a variety of personal reasons, is planned for the last week of January.

The ICT project team adopted various means to reach large numbers of people while generating requests for help. The predominant ones were:

• Through Sathins
• Through SIRDI field team
• Through Self Help Group meetings in the villages
• By conducting meetings in villages
• Through distributing the request forms to the teachers in the villages
• Through sticking posters at various locations in the villages
• By periodic announcements over the public address system on weekly market days
• By directly contacting people in the weekly market

6) Project outputs and dissemination
We have been informally sharing information about the project and its progress with various individuals and organizations in our networks, with a view to generating comments, criticisms, insights and ideas and the process is proving to be fruitful. We will set up an e-group to formalize the process in due course.
This report is part of the sharing process; the next step will be to share more details in the forthcoming partners' conference in March, in which we will be participating.
A baseline survey has been carried out to understand the a priori state of the community. The data has been entered and is being filtered, edited and refined. Analytical tabulation, and interpretation thereof will be undertaken after a similar survey carried out at the end of the project, to see the differences.
The more interesting aspect is an analysis of the requests for help received along various parameters, such as:

• Gender-Wise Split of Requests for Help Generated
• Occupational Categorisation of Requests for Help
• Village-wise patterns of requests for help
• Modes of Generating Requests for Help
• Categorisation of Types of Requests for Help
• Week-wise generation of requests

The corresponding data and charts are set out at Annexure 11.
We believe that our approach of neutrally but proactively linking up the people with the government will provide a complementary demand-led interface to the current supply driven ones. This is in keeping with modern theories of participatory governance, and provides a practical mode of doing so through ICT, overcoming barriers of space, time, status, culture and language, which often defeat this objective.
However, the work is at a preliminary stage, and we are still towards the beginning of knowledge generation in this field - dissemination is a subsequent issue.

7) Capacity building
The quantitative and qualitative expansion of SIRDI's IT infrastructure is certainly changing basic ways of working.
The short-term nature of the project is adding a keen cutting edge to the earlier thoughts about social business and other forms of sustainable working, which were being slowly evolved in SIRDI's other projects - linkages are gradually being forged for the purpose.
The multi-location nature of the team - advisors, consultants, staff, government, people is teaching us valuable lessons in communications, self-management etc.
Most of the older people involved with the ICT project have dual backgrounds in both research and administration. The project provides a context for the younger people to develop their research orientation, thus becoming all-rounders.
After a few initial hiccups, the saathin training is proceeding smoothly. To teach computer skills and make them understand, examples from Panchatantra and other Indian mythology were told. We tried to convey the messages to them by giving examples from their day-to-day lives.
The focus has been on overall awareness of the project on one hand, and skill building about stimulating information flow from villagers, and properly documenting it on the other. The interesting observation is that the later batches of saathins are generating more requests for help than the earlier ones, thus demonstrating that we have moved through a learning front on this aspect as well.
It was a challenge to motivate the Saathins so that they work as catalyst between the villagers and ICT Project team. An altogether different approach was needed to make them converse with the ICT team. As more than 60% of the Saathins were/are illiterate and some of them do not even understand the local language Hindi, the process of explanation/teaching was very slow and needed repetition.
Out of the 15 selected for computer training, the first batch of four has been launched to teach them computer basics and data entry work. As the software is designed in the local language Hindi, we have taught them Hindi typing skills using a manual typewriter. While the literate saathins progressed faster initially, the illiterate duo picked up fast later by working and practicing for hours on the typewriter!
The fact that women are the information intermediaries, by design, is changing and will further change the inter-gender power equations within the village. While SIRDI's earlier work had already built a base for the purpose, it was more on the social front rather than relationships with the power structures and interfaces. The fact that requests from women number over one-third the total, much higher than can normally be expected in the Indian cultural milieu, speaks for itself.
Finally, in passing: The area in which we are implementing the ICT Project, has very low literacy levels. The ICT Project team had to adopt various patterns of communication to elicit the information. Sometimes the people whom we were talking to started talking in their mother tongue Gondi or Korku, giving us a tough time to understand the information. Therefore, by the time project takes shape, the ICT Project team will have learned two more local languages at least.

8) Project management
Administration by SIRDI:
Given the short term nature of the project and its action research orientation, our management rhythm approximates that popularly seen in the style of "total football" so popular with leading teams nowadays. This involves quick passing, with everyone except perhaps the goalkeeper switching roles as needed, and the coach playing an active role from the sidelines even while the match is going on!
Scientific management of the project:
Our work has so far been a mixture of proceeding as per plans and struggling through when unexpected situations emerge, which is the typical style seen during action research. Our own notes about these changes are valuable raw material to generate qualitative research insights at a subsequent stage.
Technical and other support and administration by IDRC:
We appreciate the partners' conference being organised in Laos in March, which will help us to learn and share. The material about success stories, which we have received, has also been useful for the purpose. Helping us to network with various relevant resource persons and institutions will be helpful in future.

9) Impact
The flow of requests is steadily increasing every week, suggesting a pent-up demand for help. The potential flow of requests however is much higher. This can be understood from comparison of the levels of requests across various villages, which show a huge variance. This can be attributed to differential effectiveness of the concerned saathins, etc. Once interventions are made in the coming weeks to boost the effectiveness of the network in the villages lagging behind, the figures will certainly rise.
Most requests are currently not for pure information per se, or even for getting official forms from government offices as we had expected earlier, but are for tying up assistance from specific governmental, financial and other external institutions. A sample list of requests is attached at Annexure 12 for reference, so that a first-hand insight can be achieved.
Typically these centre around guidance about agriculture, purchase of agri-inputs, making tie-ups for employment/self-employment, getting bank loans, removing constraints in continuing with their education, availing of health check-ups, support for those who are socially or physically disadvantaged, resolving legal tangles etc. A common request is to offer facilities to photocopy various papers, laminate important documents and take passport sized photographs - the reason becomes clear from the mini-case about "The Economics of Photocopying", attached at Annexure 13.
Perhaps this may change after the first round of top-of-the-mind requests are handled, or perhaps the success may stimulate further requests of similar types. The percentage of economic activity related requests from males is far higher, while the women tend to focus more on social sectors - symptomatic of the gender-based roles in society.
There has thus been an excellent response from the external systems until date, in which the credibility built up by SIRDI over the years has played a significant role. The photographs included separately along with the hard copy of this report convey a visual feel of the project - a list of these photographs is included at Annexure 14.
Most appreciate the role of the project in bringing them closer to the people, thus multiplying their effectiveness, despite their manpower, infrastructure, financial and logistics constraints. The chief operational breakthroughs currently achieved about issues affecting large numbers of people are:

• The agriculture department has held an extension camp for the villagers, getting their area extension officers and district level specialists along. About 40 villagers attended, with 18 of them being those who had already sent in agriculture-related inquiries. All their queries have been satisfactorily resolved. They have agreed in principle that their officers will be in the centre on market days by rotation to guide the villagers, and are willing to hold demo camps in the villages, upon request by an adequately sized group.
• The social welfare department will be holding a similar camp sometime in February for physically handicapped people, bringing along concerned medical, social work and rehabilitation specialists for the purpose.
• The industries and rural development departments will be holding similar camps about employment/self-employment oriented activities sometime next month.
• The collector of Betul district and the sub-divisional magistrate of Bhainsdehi tehsil have expressed interest in having inter-departmental camps in the coming weeks.
• The local bank has agreed to advance group-based loans depending on individual appraisal, to the extent that the saathin and community network help in recovering outstanding bad debts from the concerned villages.
• The tribal welfare department will, based on the request from girl students, be distributing bicycles in the next academic year to those coming from distant villages to enable them to continue studying.

As far as individual cases go, we are, at least at the initial stages of the project, discouraging people from focussing upon complaints against government departments or specific employees. The idea is to first create a strong working relationship with the government. The status on resolving individual cases is as follows:

• The collector (head of administration in the entire district) has agreed to forward e-mails/faxes sent to his machines, to the concerned agencies, since the government system in the district currently has just 3 internet connections and only 4 fax machines!
• Replies have been given to various inquiries about examination dates by almost 20 students.
• Health check-ups have been arranged for about five villagers seeking urgent treatment.

10) Overall assessment
A question will no doubt arise as to, given the experiences until date and projecting them into the future, what is the value-added role of ICT is in a project of this sort. The answer is that the stage is too premature to give an answer.
We are just at the fag end of the process of laying the basic societal networks, and streamlining internal operations. Our work in the next six months will provide the proof of the pudding.
Our work will generate insights for CBO's/NGO's on how to use ICT for organising people effectively without unnecessarily getting into confrontationist activism.
It will also generate insights for government into how it can better use IT in reaching out to citizens in pursuit of its developmental mandate.
We also expect some understanding about how e-commerce can be applied to minor forest produce in which not even off-line, let alone on-line markets are well organized.
There are on an average about 1-2 functional community based weekly market centres of this size (smaller and larger ones also exist) in most development blocks in the country.
There are more than 5000 such blocks in India and the replication factor is hence about 7-8000.
When one keeps in mind the Asian context in particular and the international, especially third world context in general, the impact of this project could be even more.
This project is an important milestone for us, not in terms of size, but in the different nature of activities, it is inducting us in to. It is taking a lot of time of various senior people in the organisation, which is disproportionate to that estimated and budgeted earlier. This however is perhaps an inescapable part of the whole process of planning new interventions.
We are however somewhat apprehensive about the very short term nature of the project, which might lead to our efforts having to stall just when they are at the point of taking off. While we are working towards looking at future sources of developmental funding, and internal funds generation, it is a moot point as to whether we will or will not be able to handle the gestation period involved in such efforts bearing fruit.

11) Recommendations:
We have experienced a significant period of preliminary and preoperative activities due to the rhythms of recruitment and induction, infrastructure creation, establishment of connectivity, building institutional linkages and grass roots networks, etc. It is probable that this would happen in most such projects, especially those in remote areas and/or those dealing with indigenous communities.
It is thus important to build a 6-month gestation period into such projects, only after which the main project would start.
Further, we need to go through a period of internal learning to streamline operating processes on one hand, and external credibility creation on the other. This has to happen before demand is generated for paid services, which is the route to be eventually taken for sustainability.
We are not a commercial organisation, but are striving to achieve social objectives through market-friendly methods, and thus cannot afford to focus solely on profitable as opposed to socially high priority ones. If the project period is too short, we thus have to go on writing fresh project proposal all the time to stave off discontinuity, rather than focussing all energies on making the project work.
It is thus important to approve such projects for a 3-year period, with approval being given separately for 2 equal phases of the project - this issue is separate from that of the gestation period referred to earlier.

12) List of Annexures to this report
1. Map of Betul district
2. Catchment area of Sawalmendha weekly market
3. English translation of base-line survey form
4. Coding list for baseline survey
5. Raw data of baseline survey
6. English translation of form to be filled for seeking help from the project
7. Software Features
8. Telecom Milestones
9. Power Log for 1 week
10. Training Module
11. Analysis of requests for help
12. Sample list of request
13. Mini-case about "The Economics of Photocopying"
14. List of Still Photographs included with the hard copy of the report