Digital Divide in India owing to poor and insufficient internet connectivity

Introduction

• India is at the cusp of a digital revolution powered by increasing broadband and internet penetration, exponential data uptake.
• India missed the first and second Industrial Revolutions in the 19th and early 20th centuries as it was then fodder for colonial industrialisation.
• It also missed the third one, since it came at a time when India’s economic policies were not conducive to technology.
• But India is leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is digitally driven one, with speed and scale.
• Every industrial revolution brings with it a speculation about destruction of jobs, what primarily changes with every transformation is the nature of jobs. It is believed that India’s ‘New Economy’ is augmenting jobs rather than replacing them. The ride-sharing industry is a great example of this.
• It has led to over 1.5 million jobs being created in the shared cab industry. These jobs aren’t just limited to Tier-1 or Tier-2 cities, which were earlier the primary beneficiaries of the digital revolution.
• India’s biggest cab aggregator exists in close to 170 cities and towns across the nation.
• The New Economy has rather led to the rise of a new kind of employment: the gig economy.
• This allows the worker flexibility in deciding his or her participation in the labour market by determining his or her own work hours and timings.

Digital Divide in India

• The term digital divide describes the uneven distribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in society.
• The report of the NSO’s survey of ‘Household Social Consumption on Education in India’, for July 2017-June 2018, highlighted the poor state of computer and Internet access in several States.
• India’s digital divide remains huge as more than 400 million people still have no access to the internet.
• India’s digital sectors still account for less than 10% of GDP, which is low compared to other emerging economies.

Disparities in Internet Penetration

• National capital has the highest Internet access, with 55% of homes having such facilities. Himachal Pradesh and Kerala are the only other States where more than half of all households have Internet.
• At the other end of the spectrum is Odisha, where only one in ten homes has Internet. There are ten other States with less than 20% Internet penetration, including States with software hubs such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
• According to the 75th round of National Sample Survey just  4 rural households have a computer, against 14.4 per cent in urban areas, with just 14.9 per cent rural households having access to the internet against 42 per cent households in urban areas

Impact of Digital Divide

• The World Economic Forum reports a surge in the use of language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools, and online learning software during coronavirus outbreak.
• Education should liberate us to scale life and help us find solutions to the problems of the world. The digital divide impedes performance in academics, creates undue competitive advantages to some, and reduces the productivity for others.
• It widens the rich-poor gap in academic performance and earning potential.
• Recent usage figures released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) show that the availability of cheap data has spurred an increase in rural internet users, surpassing their urban counterparts. This shows rise in basic telecommunication facilities, but cannot be taken as a meaningful indication of presence and use of services such as online learning.
• Starkest digital divide probably is evident in education, which is fundamental to any transformation.
• Access to phones and the internet is not just an economic factor but also social and cultural. If one family has just one phone, there is a good chance that the wife or the daughter will be the last one to use it.
• ICT technologies strengthen farming communities through wide networking and collaborations. Farmers are able to enhance their own capacities through updated information and wide exposure.eg E-NAM, Kisanchoupal, M-Kisan SMS portal etc. Lack of access or digital literacy can truly impede the extent to which farmers may benefit from such initiatives.

Digital Divide in Education

• Accessibility divide: There are students in remote rural areas and peripheral urban areas. Here connectivity is either too slow or intermittent are not necessarily poor. Or, there may not be curated sources of content. Bureaucracy, corruption, tech support, and infrastructure are some of the causes. In these areas, access can be improved with community technology centres,
• Generational divide: There is also as gap between generations – that is, between teachers and parents vs. students. Parents are wary of giving devices to kids because of misuse. They also don’t know how to guide in the effective use of the digital media. Teachers are hesitant to change their pedagogy for fear of losing their relevance. Thus Teachers must be trained in the latest technology, curriculum and the use of digital media in pedagogy. Students should also look at digital learning not as a way to disconnect from teachers and peers but to make those interactions more meaningful in transforming to what they want to achieve
• Behavioural divide:This is the gap between those who can learn on their own, with or without social setting, vs. those who can’t. Many women, girls, minorities and migrants shun digital access for learning because it is either too boring to learn on their own or too antisocial.
• For correcting the behavioural divide, teachers and parents need to bridge the generational divide partly and mentor students to self-learning.
• Closing the digital educational gap also requires reskilling teachers, and investing more in teamwork and communication. Local content applications will need to be developed in local languages, so that they can be understood by local people.

Women and Digital Divide

• Mobile Gender Gap Report 2020 released by GSMA, an association representing interests of mobile network operators worldwide, says that while 79 per cent men own a mobile phone in the country, the number for women is 63 per cent.
• Technology experts say women and girls with poor digital literacy skills will be the hardest hit and will struggle to find jobs as technology advances.“Digital skills are indispensable for girls and young women to obtain safe employment in the formal labor market
• When women and girls have access to the Internet and the skills to use information and communications technologies (ICTs), they have the opportunity to start new businesses, sell products to new markets, find better-paid jobs and access education as well as health and financial services.
• It was observed that under Bharat net Project Digital divide was further gendered with women unable to use the free Gram PanchayatWiFi the way the menfolk of the village do, owing to social taboos and restrictions on women’s mobility. Moreover, even trials by private WiFi service operators using the NOFN infrastructure ignored women as potential users, assuming erroneously that they would not have any need for the internet in the first place.
• Research shows that even with new jobs emerging through online or mobile platforms, such as rideshare apps Uber or ola domestic services or food couriers, women are still faring worse than men.
• “Offline factors” like poverty, gender discrimination and gender stereotypes were preventing girls and women from benefiting from digital technologies.

Digital Colonialism

• Concerns of ‘digital colonialism’ have been raised that a few large corporations are beginning to dominate the digital field.
• In the past, a free market approach was seen as the solution, but the market-based approach has now started to shift towards to a more regulated approach. This transition towards a more regulated approach—how data can be collected, stored and processed—at national and global levels is still at an early stage and raises many societal and ethical questions.
• Drawing the line between self-certification and regulation remains a key challenge, as private enterprises explore internal ethics boards and external audits, and governance frameworks. Global regulatory frameworks on cybersecurity, AI, digital trade and more are still evolving.
• There is no one-size-fits-all solution, as there are different options for operationalising and implementing digital regulations at national and global levels. The key is that regulations do not impede the nature and pace of innovation.

Government Initiatives

• Optical fibre internet: On India's 74th Independence Day, India unveiled an ambitious plan: to "complete the work of connecting over six lakh villages with optical fibre." This announcement has once again brought into focus earlier telecom policy moves with similar ambitions to connect rural India to the internet.
• Unique identity number: Recently government gave a policy push to ensure that no Indian remains without a unique identity. Today, 99% of Indian adults have an Aadhaar identity number.
• Interlinking of identity system: The government further interlinked the identity system with bank accounts and mobile numbers, resulting in the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-mobile phone) trinity. JAM has become the fundamental digital architecture ushering in holistic financial inclusion.
• BHIM UPI: The Bharat Interface for Money-Unified Payment Interface (BHIMUPI), with over 600 million transactions in January 2019 alone, is the interoperable backbone connecting all banks and consumers, and is being front-ended by many national and international digital platforms.
• Open digital innovation: The open digital innovation by the government has been leveraged by the startup community, making India now the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. Indian retail brokering, ecommerce, food delivery and ride-hailing startups are competing as equals with the largest platforms in the world.
• Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan: Launched in 2017, the scheme aims to usher in digital literacy in rural India by covering 60 million households.
• Access to internet: Government has been trying to improve internet access in the country. In 2011, the BharatNet project was launched to connect 0.25 million panchayats through optical fibre (100 MBPS) and connect India’s villages.
• National Education Policy (NEP) has a new section on digital education to ensure “equitable use of technology”.
  • A dedicated unit to coordinate digital infrastructure, content and capacity building will be created within the Education Ministry to look after the online learning needs of both school and higher education.
  • Teachers will also be given training in online educational methods relevant to the Indian situation in order to help bridge the digital divide.

Challenges

• Implementation issues: The 2015-committee constituted by the government to evaluate the implementation and progress of (National optical fibre network) NOFN/ BharatNet found numerous issues plaguing the implementation and use of the infrastructure.
• Lack of skilled staff: The sites where NOFN had been completed, repair and maintenance issues were exacerbated by a lack of skilled staff.
• Structural issues: Unreliable electricity and inadequate space to house and secure equipment and assets made it even more difficult to provide internet connectivity to rural residents even if the village was, by definition, "connected".
• Limited reach: The reach of the NOFN infrastructure was limited to the offices of the Gram Panchayat. From there, horizontal connectivity was extended via Broadband Wireless Terminal (BBWT) devices to other institutions of importance in the villages such as schools, primary health care centres, veterinary sub centres, and land records office, of which all connections were not functional.
• Less revenue generation: While e-commerce revenue has grown exponentially globally, it remains at less than 5% of trade in India, and more than 80% of all retail transactions are still made in cash.

Way ahead for India

• Resource availability: The availability of hardware, software, network equipment, connectivity, and 24X7 reliable information are keys to bridging the digital divide.
• National digital institution: India will benefit from establishing a national digital institution to promote investments in digital infrastructure and build strategic partnerships with the private sector, especially the Silicon Valley and European centres of excellence.
• Expansion of world organization: The existing global multilateral institutions—the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO—will also need to expand their resources devoted to digital development, as this will help achieve Sustainable Development Goals at a faster pace.
• Shift towards AI system: There is a role for partnerships between Indian and foreign researchers to design AI systems for the Indian context to reduce the digital divide.
• Investment in digital ecosystems: India stands to gains a lot from the digital revolution, if it can invest more and develop the digital ecosystems in sectors such as agriculture, education, energy, healthcare and logistics.

Digital technologies can create significant value in areas such as government services—subsidy transfers and procurement—and can improve labour markets, and reduce fragmented job market in the informal sector that employs a majority of the labour force. A key challenge is how to scale up digital investments. Policymakers in India will thus need to increase investments to scale up access to reliable and less erratic electricity supply, which is the key to a digital foundation. Also a lot more needs to be done to improve the digital data and ecosystems—the ease with which people can connect, collaborate, transact and share information

• Improvements in digital ecosystems can improve productivity of farmers, who lack data on soil, weather, storage, logistics and digital land records that enable them to borrow loans and access crop insurance.
• Improved digital ecosystems can also help with the expansion of telemedicine that can reduce the shortage of medical professionals in rural areas and smaller towns.
• On the network technology front, a new gigabit speed ‘wireless fibre’ standard is being viewed in developed countries as a leapfrog option to link inaccessible areas; it involves high capacity spectrum (E and V bands), and is commercially not contentious.
• Increased global digital cooperation is very important and far greater than global cooperation in goods trade, given the intangible nature of digital assets. It has become greater following Covid-19, which has shown how interconnected we have become as a global society.