CONNECT A SCHOOL, CONNECT A COMMUNITY

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