A rural ray of hope during COVID-19

Crisis speeds up technology adoption. Urban India got a taste of it during demonetisation when e-wallets surged. During this COVID-19 crisis, across rural India, a new breed of entrepreneurs are experiencing a game-changing moment.

A modest government programme of setting up Common Service Centres (CSC) across 2.5 lakh gram panchayats, to primarily deliver citizen-centric services, banking and some private services, is today proving to be a saviour for rural citizens faced with the loss of livelihood. Functioning under the aegis of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the CSC programme is reaping plenty of benefits for the rural society.

In Indian villages, farmers are the primary revenue earners. The lockdown has prevented operation of local mandis, causing loss of income for millions of growers as they sit on stockpiles of perishable produce. In the western part of India, however, it is a bit different story. In Devgad taluka of coastal Maharashtra and the Gir region (Junagadh district) of Gujarat, mango farmers are tapping into the potential of CSCs to reach out to their customers using the online route and tracking a wide service network of CSC centres.

Here, innovative grassroots entrepreneurs (Village Level Entrepreneurs or VLEs) are taking online orders for export-grade Alphonso and Gir’s Kesar and delivering at doorsteps using the CSC Grameen e-Store app and an extensive network of CSC centres.

Arguably the most beneficial aspect of these small-scale innovations is that farmers are witnessing an all-time high revenue by directly selling to customers instead to traders in the mandi. Information and Communication Technology has aided to eliminate the traditional inefficiencies and supply chain constraints of agricultural marketing.

Women entrepreneurs from rural Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh are training farmers to download and use the CSC Grameen e-Store app. They are connecting local LPG distributors to the app so that housewives do not need to miss their free cylinders under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY).

Migrant workers stranded in far-off cities and towns in this lockdown period, also banked on CSCs to return home. They used CSC e-Governance service centres to get in touch with authorities.

These technology entrepreneurs in rural India are leveraging many benefits of ICT to reduce the urban-rural divide. Some of these use cases are well on their way to change the economic horizon of rural India permanently and create a more socially, financially, and digitally inclusive society.

At the Indian School of Business’s (ISB) research centre, Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (SRITNE-ISB), we closely studied the role played by grassroots entrepreneurs, in an impact assessment study of the CSC programme. Our research led to the assertion of the growing importance of grassroots entrepreneurs.

We interviewed about 2,500 VLEs from 10 states and evaluated their business success. We found that entrepreneurial traits like social-orientation, achievement motivation and self-belief, impacts the performance of grassroots entrepreneurs significantly and positively. One of our key findings was that grassroot entrepreneur’s perception of their environment has a direct bearing on their achievement motivation and social orientation. We witness it now, as rural entrepreneurs start making a difference in this crisis from distant corners.

Based on our study findings, SRITNE-ISB was engaged by the government to develop two programmes. One aimed to improve digital literacy of rural citizens and another on entrepreneurial literacy for VLEs. We believe that grassroots entrepreneurs can pave the path for digital empowerment of rural citizens and enhance demand for newer products and services from the ‘rural pie’.

In the coming days, this crisis will trigger a self-sustaining cycle of business value and tech-enabled enterprise creation across the country. And, we at ISB are only too happy to enable these grassroots entrepreneurs to flourish, motivate others like them and contribute to a much-anticipated V-shaped recovery of the Indian economy.

(Mokkapati is the Associate
Director at the Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked
Economy (SRITNE), Dey is a Senior Manager at SRITNE)