Page 178 - ITU Kaleidoscope 2016

2016 ITU Kaleidoscope Academic Conference

management, the high cost of production, the absence which the responses were very high or very low were
of quality consciousness etc. filtered out for finer analysis.
7. Noncooperative Attitude of the Financial Table 1 provides the highlights of the findings from the
Institutions: The Financial Institutions do not information sharing perspective. It would help in the
consider SHGs seriously while providing finance and analysis of gaps where ICTs could play a role.
other help.
8. Inadequate Support from Line Department: For 4. NCoRe SYSTEM MODEL
obtaining assistance and support, the group members
have to approach the line officers, who are not always
very co-operative with the SHGs. Based on the above observations, NCoRe (Next Generation
Collaborative and Responsive Rural Community) has been
To empirically analyze the dynamics of the SHGs, a designed and developed as an Interactive Community
primary study was conducted in a state in India, namely driven Information System that helps the day-to-day
Tamil Nadu. 100 semi-structured in-depth interviews were functioning of the SHGs, who are acting as micro-
conducted in six villages spanning across three districts, communities within a village community. The objectives
over a four month period. The interviews covered the of NCoRe are to
group leaders, the group representatives, and the general a. empower SHGs to interact and collaborate among
group members. Each interview lasted from half an hour to themselves and with other rural development
over an hour. To gain insights into the dynamics of the authority‟s (sub-clusters, clusters, government
SHGs in order to assess their strengths and weaknesses agencies, NGOs etc.) to share their problems and
(and identify possible gaps where ICT can pitch in), search for solutions
specific questions were posed to the members of the group. b. enable the involvement of SHGs to participate in
Additionally, the questions were carefully designed to their local governance
bring out factors that would impact the performance of the c. support them to access various skill development
SHGs. The questions were carefully translated to the native programs, entrepreneurship training to improve
language by the author. their livelihood
d. guide them to establish market linkage to sell their
Table 1: Analysis of Gaps from Information sharing perspective products, get raw materials and to get financial
Themes Analysis of Gaps in SHG developments assistance
from Information sharing perspective e. engage them to form a resilient community for
Networking Limited Inter-Group Interactions; No better disaster management
and External knowledge about SHGs outside the group‟s
Links locality; referential (word of mouth) growth As indicated earlier, in India, apart from infrastructure, a
of SHGs; enrolment of new members only major impediment in Internet usage is still internet costs. In
through member references several other developing countries, “Free Basics” by
Market Personal selling of group‟s products; No Facebook or similar initiatives provide people with access
Awareness knowledge of market outside the locality. to useful services on their mobile phones for free without
Supporting Low interactions with the NGOs; No data charges. However, in India, these kinds of services are
Agencies knowledge about other supporting agencies; banned to favor net-neutrality. Still, taking advantage of
harassment by the banking system the fact that cell-phone penetration and SMS usage in India
Government Limited knowledge about the benefits of is very high; NCoRe collects data from the target
Schemes government schemes communities (SHGs) through interactive SMS in native
Health Lack of knowledge about procurement of language [17, 18]. However, NCoRe can easily be
health insurance; limited awareness about
seasonal epidemic diseases upgraded to the internet-enabled interactive system to build
Miscellaneous Lack of task interdependence within the next-generation collaborative and responsive communities,
findings group; Regular Manual maintenance of transforming the way they live, learn and work. A block
multiple record books, which is diagram of NCore System is shown in fig 1.
cumbersome NCoRe System collects and collates information from
SHGs regarding their needs and wants and connects them
To bring in objectivity to the data captured through the electronically to different government and non-government
interviews, they were transcribed and qualitatively agencies dealing with livelihood enhancement and
analyzed for dominant patterns and themes. Since many of community well-being programs involving SGHs. NCoRe
the participants were not able to answer the survey has the following features:
themselves, the person administering the survey read out 1. Keep a record of static information of SHGs. This part
the questions to the participants on many occasions, who will be recorded in the system only once on
then went on to fill the answers. The responses were used registration of new SHG in the system
in two ways. Firstly, the average scores of all participants
for each module and sub-module were calculated to obtain
insights about the dynamics of the SHGs and identify gaps
where in ICT could play a role. Additionally, questions for

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