The study by Rajender Verma assesses
the impact of IT services and e-governance projects in the
development of the rural society. It covers the services concerned
with their regular routine such as agriculture, education, health,
social relation, product marketing, administration, planning and
current information needs. Agriculture is the main income source on
Rural Himachal. So, the study identifies IT as an effective tool for
increasing agricultural output stressing government to start
e-Business Scheme like e-Choupal Scheme (Internet-based interventions
in rural Farmers introduced by ITC).
Report along many regional e-governance
tools covers SUGAM or Integrated Community Service Centers (i-CoSC)
and Agriculture Resource Information Systems and Networking
(AGRISNET) particularly concerned with rural agriculture. SUGAM
provides all important services including agriculture commodity
prices at the doorstep of rural community by bringing all citizen
related services and information under a single roof cutting across
different tiers of administration. While, AGRISNET Project brings
farmers, researchers, scientists and administrators together by
establishing online information for agriculture, animal husbandry,
horticulture and fisheries departments. The citizens can put their
queries online along with the scanned photographs (if any) on the web
and get the advice from the experts of concerned departments. It
longs to create a sustainable data bank of all agricultural Inputs in
the State of Himachal Pradesh containing entries for all relevant
information pertaining to agriculture and related activities.
(Source: e-agriculture)
Full report