The mobile development report - Center for Knowledge Societies

The mobile development report
Aditya Dev Sood
Center for Knowledge Societies
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2
The Mobile Development Report
The Socio-Economic Dynamics of
Mobile Communications in Rural Areas and their
Consequences for Development
3
The Mobile Development Report is the outcome of the research program funded and supported
by Nokia Corporation. This research program was completed between March and September
2006 by the Center for Knowledge Societies. Kimmo Lipponen commissioned this study on
behalf of Nokia’s Corporate Relations, Responsibility and Community Involvement Team.
Research Director Aditya Dev Sood
Project Manager
Sayalee Joshi
Graphic Designer
Mena Malgonkar
Graphics
Saudha Kasim
Copy Editing
Fiza Ishaq
Field Researchers
Sumeet Gupta
Ila Vashishtha
Prasanna B K
Riddhima Shelat
www.cks.in
The Center for Knowledge Societies
The Mobile Development Report
Copyright © 2006 The Center for Knowledge Societies
In this document, some names, likenesses and personal details may have been changed,
in order to protect our sources.
No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise
without the prior permission of the author.
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Contents
Introduction
Field Location and Methodology 16
Understanding Remoteness and Poverty 40
Socio-Economic Dynamics of Mobile Adoption
70
Opportunities for Mobile Development 84
Consequences of this Study 106
Case Studies 115
Bibliography 214
About the Authors 223
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Introduction
6
Purpose
The world is in the throes of a mobile revolution. Ten years ago only a small fraction of the world
used mobile phones. At the beginning of 2007 there are approximately 2.6 billion mobile phone
users, and it is widely predicted that there will be four billion users around the world by 2010.
At present, less than 20% of the people around world live in an area where there is no mobile
coverage.
Unlike the earliest adopters of mobile telephony, who were elite and specialized professionals,
current adopters are relatively poor, and live in the poorer nations of the world. Many emerging
users also live in rural environments, where modern infrastructural and institutional amenities are
scarce. In addition to supporting the largest number of users, mobile phones also represent the
world’s most complex connectivity and media platform, one which supports the largest variety of
media formats. The impact of mobile phones on the lives of new rural adopters, therefore, will be
profound.
Beginning in the late 1990s, global development agencies came to recognize the potential
benefits of the internet, which promised to connect communities that lacked access to specialized
informational or human resources, or even adequate roads and telephones. Many developing
countries have since worked with international agencies and private sector companies to close the
so-called ‘digital divide’. Meanwhile, however, given the extraordinarily rapid roll-out of mobile
telephony, we are faced with a different problem: how can we make best developmental use of
the mobile networks that are now being completed in rural and remote areas around the world?
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It is extremely difficult to predict precisely the cultural, societal, economic and even political
changes that will occur as mobile communications become more widespread in hitherto
underdeveloped areas of the world. However, it is possible to observe and to document certain
specific transformations in lifestyle and livelihood that are already occurring among adopters and
non-adopters in areas that have only recently received mobile coverage.
Such ethnographic data, when viewed alongside prior field studies and secondary materials, may
allow us to draw out the broad contours of the social and economic changes that occur during the
process of mobile phone adoption. Whereas prior quantitative and macroeconomic research has
sought to establish a correlation between mobile phone penetration and developmental gains at
a country level, this report is the first attempt to establish the socio-economic impact of mobile
phones through empirical and ethnographic means.
Our research indicates, that certain changes in personal identity, social structure and social
network occur; these may be linked to further business, economic and financial transformations.
In documenting and describing these changes, we hope to inspire and motivate diverse
developmental actors to imagine new and innovative uses for mobile phones that will enhance
lives and livelihoods in rural and agrarian regions of the world.
On the basis of ethnographic observation, we have also identified some of the most promising
means for providing information, content, transactions and other experiences to the world’s
newest mobile citizens. Our recommendations are informed by prior studies documenting the
use of Informations, Communications and Technologies (ICT) for development, as well as our
knowledge of the mobile industry.
The field studies for this report were conducted exclusively in India, a country with a rich tradition
of social innovation in the use of technology for development. During the 1950s and 1960s, India
was also the site for many innovations in immunization, antenatal health care, milk processing and
distribution, and in the use of hybrid seeds and modern methods of farming. India was one of the
first regions of the world to use radio and television for education. It also innovated the public call
booth model for widespread long-distance calling and was the site for the most inventive series of
rural internet kiosk projects.
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Although this study focuses on India, our findings will be relevant for many other emerging
world regions facing similar challenges and opportunities. In this document, we also propose
several new agendas for partnership between industry, policy makers, research institutions,
civil society and inter-governmental agencies. It is our hope that this research will promote and
guide the development of new products and services for new rural users; that it may suggest
new approaches to corporate social responsibility initiatives and that it will inform new policy
approaches to rural development as well as telecom regulation.
No single agency or sector of society can drive mobile development alone. This enormous task
will require that the mobile industry work closely with state and inter-state agencies, grassroots
development organizations and academia. Together, we must generate new research agendas,
draft public policy, and establish industry standards to ensure the delivery of welfare and other
services for those who need them most.
This report seeks to inform the global policy-making debate and developmental practices over
the coming two years. Despite its relatively short shelf life as a guide to mobile development, the
ethnographic data contained herein may also have longer-term archival value as a documentation
of the profound social and economic transformations brought about by mobile communications.
If, however, the global conversation on driving development and the delivery of welfare services
on the mobile platform gains currency, speed, and urgency, this document would have served its
purpose.
Although this study focuses on India, our findings will be relevant for many other emerging world
regions facing similar challenges and opportunities.
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Theoretical and Intellectual Foundations of this Research
Mobile networks represent a new structure in society, one which makes possible new forms of
interaction, communication and transaction. As such, these networks need to be understood and
theorized as a form of knowledge infrastructure. Marx’s classic distinction between the material
base or infrastructure of an economy and its cognitive or conceptual superstructure does not
adequately capture modern forms of electronic media, which operate on both sides of this binary
(in Tucker 1972 [Marx 1932]). This is to say, they are indeed a material form of infrastructure, even
as they encompass cognitive and intellectual dimensions of content, protocols of use and sharing,
social meaning and ideology. Following Latour and other contemporary social theorists of
science and technology, we recognize that the emergence of any new technology, such as mobile
communications, is accompanied by a gamut of social transformations, all of which may be said to
be coproducing, in social terms, its very viability and relevance.
It has been proposed that increased mobile phone adoption is positively correlated with other
economic growth as well as other developmental indicators (Vodafone 2005). Although no
specific explanatory mechanism to explain this relationship is yet available, it has been proposed
that increased mobile phone usage, in certain developing nations in Africa, has lead to an increase
in ‘social capital’ (2005: 53). Two lines of questioning emerge, as we seek to theorize the social,
cultural and economic transformations that occur in relationship to the roll-out and adoption
of mobile phones. First, how can we really be sure that the technology in question is actually
the source of these dimensions of social change? Second, if society is changing alongside the
diffusion or adoption of a given technology, what means can we use to track these changes? How
can we map and then represent it? What sort of language is appropriate for talking about these
social transformations?
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In this report we will be careful to recognize that mobile communications are in fact a component
of a larger media explosion and information revolution that is already occurring around the
world, and that these large phenomena are themselves imbricated in the massive worldwide
transformation of societies from various degrees of dependency on agriculture to industrial and
informational economies that are concentrated in large urban centers. Mobile phones do not so
much ‘have an impact’ on society as participate in social transformations that they may further
accelerate and enable. They are used by users to accomplish social objectives that devices on their
own could never have.
We also caution against the claim that mobile communications create ‘social capital’ in any
society. While a number of social scientists from different disciplines have followed Putnam
(2000) to refer to the “fellowship, sympathy and social intercourse” within a society. In current
developmental parlance, the term is also used to describe enablers of sociality, reciprocity, trust
and the protocols of networkedness in society, which bind elements of varying scale to one
another. An alternative usage of the term, however, derives from Bourdieu (1984), for whom
social capital is merely one possible variant among a number of different kinds of capital,
including intellectual, cultural and economic capital, all of which represent “actually usable
resources and power” (1984:114).
Whereas Putnam proposes that there exist gradients in the quantum of social capital across the
states in America (2000:360), we find such a representation confusing and potentially misleading.
Contrary to Putnam, we do not seek to describe qualitative phenomena such as goodwill and
fellowship in quantitative terms, nor do we seek to evaluate transformations in social and
communicative behavior in terms of the mere growth or diminutions of capital. The concept of
social capital must be used as a qualitative concept for it to retain any descriptive power at all. We
would also promote the term ‘social connectedness,’ which allows the concept to be loosened
from the quantitative assumptions of capital, and also to be used in historical and cultural
contexts outside the horizon of capital.
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The term ‘social capital’ offers a very bland and monologic framework for describing complex
transformations that are occurring in the character of social connectedness. Quantitative
description of these changes has tended to obfuscate the very phenomena that beg description.
In this study we will seek to describe, in as precise and specific a language as possible,
transformations in social and communicative practice as well as its consequences for the ideology,
cosmology and personal identity of mobile phone adopters. In all of these ways, we believe
that we will be studying transformations in ‘culture,’ robustly conceived as all those the shared
assumptions that govern and make possible social interaction (Durkheim 1915, Weber 1956 [1922],
Boas 1940, Whorf 1956, Silverstein 1999).
The still emerging discipline of Communications Studies as has a wide scope and a correspondingly
distinguished set of theorists who have sought to describe the emerging role of information
in institutional cultures (Bush 1945), the role of communications in building empire (Innis
1950), the mediation and mediatization of society (McLuhan 1964), the emerging information
society (Bell 1973), the exponential effects of nodes in a network (Metcalf 1973), the problems of
human-machine communication (Suchman 1987), and the social life of information (Brown and
Duguide 2000). This report is informed by these seminal attempts to describe information and
communications technologies in relation to the societies in which they are used. In addition,
we found Avital Ronell’s The Telephone Book (1989) is a playful and post-modern approach to
describing the interactional and social dynamics of the telephone; it richly draws out the relations
between material technology and its social and ideological dimensions. Howard Rheingold’s
Smart Mobs (2002) represents a popular and prescient account of how mobile connectedness will
transform collective social behavior.
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In the context of India, M. Vishweshwaraiah’s Planned Economy for Modern India made the first
case for the use of of wireless and mass communications (1934). Sam Pitroda, the visionary
architect of India’s manned public call offices (also called STD booths), has written several memoirs
of his experiences as India’s first telecommunications czar (1993), although we unfortunately lack
any contemporary sociological account of the deployment and reception of the phenomenon. J.
P. Singh’s analysis of telecommunications restructuring (1999) provides a nuanced account of this
essential sector in the political economy in India, as well as a comparative perspective with other
regions of the world. More recently, there have been numerous accounts of the perceived benefits
of the internet connected information kiosk, including those by Kenniston (2001), Sood (2001),
Jhunjhunwala (2002), among many others.
The classic literature on the diffusion of technologies by Everett Rogers (1962) created many terms
of art that are widely used in the technology sector, such as ‘early adopter,’ ‘late majority,’ and so
forth. Although the empirical findings of his life’s work and research indicated that technologies
diffuse over a generalizable pattern, much of the literature on the digital divide from the turn of
the millenium focused on skipping the early majority and late majority, catering disruptively to the
‘poorest of the poor.’ Some credit for this way of thinking must go to C. K. Prahalad (2006), whose
best selling and now classic management studies book exhorted global corporations to seek
‘the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’. Prahalad’s thematization of the pyramid proves an
enormously powerful image and metaphor for those who have not been conventionally served by
the technology industries. However, as we shall discuss further in chapter three, the concept of the
pyramid has its limitations and does not completely describe the income, wealth, status or access
variations in any real society.
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Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze’s provide the conceptual framework for much contemporary
Indian developmental discourse (1999). Moreover, their theorization of the concept of Human
Development is a practical tool which has made possible our selection and comparison of regions
in which to conduct this research. Escobar (1995) conversely provides us with a forceful critique
of the global developmentalist conceptions of poverty, which may in some cases be the natural
state of the world before industrialization, while in others represent forms of disprivilege that
have been caused by contemporary global systems. In addition to these theoretical resources,
this work has made use of numerous developmental and industry reports which are too
numerous to cite here, but which have been listed in the bibliography.
In our analysis of social change in rural India in relation to the mobile phone, we recognize that
communications media do not merely allow us to talk, but also to do things together in new
ways. The discipline of Pragmatics, or the study of human social and linguistic action, from J.
L. Austin (1962) through Michael Silverstein and his students (1998), has helped us to recognize
these possibilities in the field, and then to better theorize them in the studio. Our approach to
the ethnographic analysis of technological phenomenon is inspired by a number of precedents
in American anthropology (Sapir 1921, Boas 1940, Whorf 1956, Tambaiah 1987, Daniel 1984, 1996)
and French sociology (Foucault 1977, Bourdieu 1977, De Certeau 1984). We have also learnt from
more recent approaches to ethnographic design, user-centred design, co-design and user research
emerging from the Royal College of Art and other advanced centers around the world (Dunn 1999,
Manzini 2003, Susani 2002, Greenfield 2006).
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Jane Fulton Suri’s careful attention to the innovative use of everyday objects by everyday people
(2005) has been a useful resource for designers and researchers at the Center for Knowledge
Societies. The personal example of Jan Chipchase, alongside his frequent online postings,
have set new standards for intimacy, insight and respect for users, to which we continue to
aspire. John Thackara’s inter-disciplinary, critical, and ultimately optimistic view of the ability
for trans-regional and global networks to be designed in ways which are ultimately enabling
for end-users has inspired some of our thinking around the possibility of delivering new and
innovative services designed for the poorest users of mobile phones in ways that might also be
environmentally responsible. Prior work by associates at the Center for Knowledge Societies on
the use of communications and media products in emerging economies around the world, much
of which remains unpublished, has also been central to the design and execution of this research
project.
Whereas prior telecommunications studies and reports have focused primarily on
macroeconomic, quantitative and statistical approaches, the present study takes a very
different path. We believe that our ethnographic approach will complement, widen and deepen
the provisional conclusions of prior studies, and look forward to the opportunity for further
collaborative research and debate.
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Field Location
and
Methodology
16
India : Overview
India is a vast nation, comparable in the size and diversity of its people to all of Europe, Latin
America or Africa. An astounding 1.1 billion people live here, and their numbers will keep growing
throughout our lives. As is also widely observed, India has a very young population, with fifty
percent of the country being under 25 years in age. It is home to numerous languages and
religions, and an astonishing variety of lifestyles, ranging from its globalized elite, who live in
major metropolitan centers, to settled agricultural communities, as well as pastoral groups who
seasonally migrate on cattle-carts across the countryside with their herds. In between, there are
urban slums, small towns, tenements, and newly constructed gated communities.
India is also among the oldest of the ‘old worlds’, and its earliest extant theological and
philosophical texts reliably date back to one-and-a-half millennia before the Common Era, some
3,500 years ago. Since that time, although this region has seen a lot of history, no common
narrative of the entire subcontinent has emerged, despite the rise and fall of numerous regional
cultures and polities. With the rise of a unified historical consciousness during India’s colonial
period, repeated attempts were made to weave such a common narrative out of the regional
destinies of so many disparate societies. Several false tropes emerged out of these efforts,
including the idea of the eternality and permanence of the caste system, and the idea of India
as a land of successive invasion, first from ‘the Muslims’ and next from the ‘the British’. Perhaps
the most effective means forward, for making sense of India’s diverse and regional historical
consciousnesses, is suggested by techniques of archaeological history, which promise to integrate
fragmentary literary and historical data in empirically rigorous and even quantifiable terms, and
which can also serve as a sounder basis for further social and cultural analysis and interpretation.
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In the following pages of this section, we provide a high-level overview of a very complex
and vast portion of the world. Every one of our observations may be challenged with counterexamples and counter-arguments. In so far as possible, however, we will avoid sweeping
generalizations that grossly distort the social, cultural and economic contours of the Indian
subcontinent, seeking rather to capture their complexity in as concise and accurate a language as
possible.
Regions of India
The four major cities of India are New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, and they fall in the
north, west, south and east of the country respectively. Each of these cities was once a colonial
administrative center and is now home to between 15 and 30 million citizens each.
Before becoming the capital of colonial and then of independent India, Delhi was the old imperial
city of the Mughal Empire. Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras), Kolkata (Calcutta) are all port
cities, and entered history as trading points in the early colonial period.
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chandigarh represent other growing and prosperous cities
with new technology and media sectors as well as older textile, manufacturing and handicrafts
industries. There are, altogether, 27 cities in India of more than one million people each.
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The four Metropolises of India
Delhi
Kolkata
Mumbai
Chennai
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The four Southern States of India
A series of cultural differences distinguish the southern, peninsular tip of India
from the rest of the mainland. The people here speak languages derived from
a Dravidian rather than a Sanskritic, base. They are more likely to eat rice
than wheat, and to use coconut in their cooking. Women may be included in
traditional inheritance law, and may also take a more active role in public and
commercial activities. The four southern Indian states are organized according
to the languages they use: Tamil Nadu (Tamil), Kerala (Malayalam), Karnataka
(Kannada) and Andhra Pradesh (Telugu).
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The four southern states of India
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India’s East-West Divide
While many urban Indians are quite conscious of north-south distinctions, there is another,
deeper kind of cleavage that runs east to west. As originally pointed out by Jairam Ramesh, if you
draw a line between Chennai and New Delhi, the western half of India is developing rapidly today,
while the eastern half is developing far more slowly (Das 2000). There are several reasons for this
vertical split down the diamond shape of peninsular India.
States in the eastern half of India are home to tribal populations which are more numerous
and more diverse than those in the west. While some of these groups were forest-dwelling
communities, others had semi-nomadic and pastoral lifestyles. With rapid deforestation, the
growth of transportation networks, modern forms of water management and river pollution,
many of these communities have found their traditional ways of life untenable and are unable
to see a clear path forward in India’s new economic paradigm. A number of tribal groups
throughout the impoverished states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa as well as some
neighboring regions have resorted to the Maoist ‘Naxalite’ or ‘Naxalvadi’ ideology, and have
organized armed militia to resist governmental paramilitary and police forces.
Settled agriculture served as the basis for the development of agri-feudal forms of Hindu caste
identity. In regions that are either more forested or deserted, alternative tribal forms of identity
are still prevalent. Several historians and anthropologists have explained how Hindu ritual
practices often organized around temples, have served as the basis for the creation of forms of
caste identity that can serve as means of distributing power and recognition among disparate
kinship communities, albeit gradiently or hierarchically. These participatory inter-caste rituals
appear to have adapted to modern forms of electoral and representational democracy.
This study has focused on the western half of India. It would now appear, however, that new
work is necessary in the eastern half of India to ascertain how mobile phones might impact less
settled and non-agrarian communities, who may also live in an environment of greater political
and personal insecurity in modern India.
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India’s East-West divide
23
Northern and Eastern Extremities
At the northern-most tip of India lies the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which comprises three
distinct regions: the low-lying foothills of Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, and the mountainous
regions of Leh and Ladakh. At the end of colonial rule, India and Pakistan were divided from
one another. The princely state of Kashmir acceded to India, though this was challenged
by Pakistan. Several wars have since been fought between the two countries over this
boundary, which remains contested today. This region of India has suffered militancy and
terrorism, as well as central rule and severe security restrictions. For these reasons, the area
has not participated in the overall economic growth that other regions of the country have
enjoyed.
The so-called ‘seven-sisters’ comprise the northeastern states, which project out to the east
of India, bordering China and Myanmar (Burma). The population of these regions is thinner
and it is ethnically and culturally similar to the small nations of south-east Asia, including
Thailand and Cambodia. The youth in these regions are cosmopolitan and have adopted
English and globalizing forms of music, media and personal style to a far greater extent
than in other parts of the country. On the other hand, several regions have also witnessed a
number of secessionist movements, as well as retributionary inter-tribal violence.
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The Northern and Eastern States
of India
25
Religion and Caste
Some 82% of India’s population is counted as Hindu. The other major religions of India are Islam
(12%), Christianity (2%), and Sikhism (2%), alongside Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and
other religions of very small proportions.
The Hindu population, however, is not homogenous, but includes various sects with often
mutually opposed belief systems, as well as tribal religions that also differ in their foundational
beliefs from mainstream Hinduism. A few examples will be sufficient to reveal the range of
internal contradictions that are encompassed within the term ‘Hinduism’:
•
In the south there is a community called the Lingayats, who, like the Sikhs, began as
a reform movement opposed to the traditional values of Hinduism, specifically Brahminism.
Unlike the Sikhs, over time they have come to be included as a sect and caste within the fold of
Hinduism.
•
The Bohras, the Khojas and other small sects, with syncretic Hindu-Muslim traditions, came
to be counted simply as Muslims by the British Colonial census.
•
Tribal populations predominate towards the eastern half of the country, and these groups
reflect extraordinary ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity among one another and with
dominant agriculturalist communities.
The idea of caste and its history in India is extremely complex, and there are a wide variety of
views on the topic among different communities in India as well as in the scholarly literature. The
traditional view of caste as the fourfold organization of society into priests, warriors, traders and
agriculturalists, however, provides a highly distorted view, which should be rejected.
26
For our purposes, perhaps the most important thing to note is that caste is ultimately a form of
kinship; that is, it is a form of social organization that is based on the family. Extended kinship
relations continue to be extremely important for modern Indians, and are often found to provide
the underlying logic for the occupations and forms of entrepreneurship pursued by individuals.
In addition, as noted above, inter-caste rituals around temples, monasteries and similar
institutions served as the basis for pre-modern kingly rituals, and were often constitutive of
both regal power, and the mutual differences among caste groups. In modern India, most large
kinship groups have caste associations, which serve not only as a social and cultural community,
but also as an interest group which can promote new social service and educational institutions,
and represent the community to the government or to political parties. Finally, the list of
candidates, ministerial berths and other political platforms in India are often designed to include a
representative number of individuals from different caste and religious communities. In this way,
India’s political and public sphere may be described as an inter-caste horizon that is assembled
through a judicious and strategic assemblage of representatives of different caste groups.
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Class and Context
India may be described as an agrarian information economy. This means that although most of the population
is still involved in agriculture and agri-processing activities in rural areas, it is nevertheless experiencing rapid
informationalization, especially through mobile technologies and mobile networks. Eleven percent of India
lives in highly cosmopolitan and metropolitan urban conglomerations, while 56% live in truly rural and remote
environments. While substantial differences between urban and rural lifestyles exist, these distinctions are
beginning to fade on account of better transport, communications and media infrastructure. Urban Indians enjoy
far better access to telecommunications, to media and to global cultural influences than their rural counterparts.
For most marketing and market research purposes, urban Indian families are classified according to the education
and occupation of the head of the household, usually a male patriarch. This results in a five-fold classification
running from ‘A’ through ‘E,’ from senior manager with a graduate degree to unemployed destitute non-worker
with no literacy skills and negligible formal education.
A different socio-economic classification is used for rural families; this is based on quality of housing and levels of
education, running ‘R1’ through ‘R4’, from large country estate of modern construction inhabited by an educated
landowner to a small shanty inhabited by an illiterate share-cropper. These forms of socio-economic classification
were originally adapted from British sociological sources for readership surveys to predict the adoption of
newspapers and magazines. They have since come to be used by those marketing Fast-Moving Consumer Goods
(FMCG-s).
India faces substantial challenges in providing modern infrastructure and institutional resources to its rural
citizens. According to the government’s own data, less than 60% of villages in India have metal roads or electrical
connections. More than 20% do not have drinking water. In addition, rural communities lack access to primary and
secondary schools, to hospitals and medical facilities and to various forms of citizen services.
28
Illiterate
School upto 4
years / literate but
no formal
schooling
School 5-9 years
SSC/HSC
Some college but
not graduate
Graduate / Post
Graduate general
Graduate / Post
Graduate
Professional
URBAN SOCIO - ECONOMIC CLASSIFICATON
1
Unskilled workers
E2
E2
E1
D
D
D
D
2
Skilled workers
E2
E1
D
C
C
B2
B2
3
Petty Traders
E2
D
D
C
C
B2
B2
4
Shop owners
D
D
C
B2
B1
A2
A2
5
Entrepreneurs Employees None
D
C
B2
B1
A2
A2
A1
6
Entrepreneurs Employees < 10
C
B2
B2
B1
A2
A1
A1
7
Entrepreneurs Employees > 10
B1
B1
A2
A2
A1
A1
A1
8
Self-employed professionals
D
D
D
B2
B1
A2
A1
9
Clerical/Salesmen
D
D
D
C
B2
B1
B1
A
Supervisory level
D
D
C
C
B2
B1
A2
B
Officers/Executives : Junior
C
C
C
B2
B1
A2
A2
C
Officer/Executives : Middle/Senior
B1
B1
B1
B1
A2
A1
A1
Education/Occupation
29
RURAL SOCIO - ECONOMIC CLASSIFICATON
Education of Chief Wage Earner
30
TYPE OF HOUSE
KUTCHA SEMI-PUCCA PUCCA
Illiterate
R4
R4
R4
Self-learning / No School
R4
R4
R3
Up to Class 4
R4
R3
R3
Class 4 - Class 9
R4
R3
R3
SSC / HSC
R3
R3
R2
College
R3
R2
R1
Graduation / Post Graduation
R3
R2
R1
Professional Degree
R3
R2
R1
For all of these reasons there is a continuous migration of rural citizens to urban centres, where most
migrants become members of the urban underclass, living in extremely dense and unhygienic conditions
in informal urban housing, often referred to as ‘basti-s’, ‘jhuggi-s’ or slums. Up to 40% of the citizens of as
large and cosmopolitan a city as Mumbai live in slums.
Urban educated and elite Indians are often fluent in English, which has given the country a distinct edge
in software development and back-office processing. But less than 5% of all Indians have been educated
in ways that would allow them work in such industries. The vast majority of other Indians speak one of
16 officially recognized languages. Hindi is the most widely spoken language, and is understood by more
than 50% of the population, mostly in the north of the country. North Indian languages such as Marathi,
Gujarati, Bengali, Bhojpuri and Punjabi are relatively easily understood by speakers of Hindi. The four
South Indian languages, however, have a different linguistic base and cannot be so easily understood by
north Indians. The tribal languages of central and north-east India are also various and distinct.
Approximately 500 million Indians – a little less than half the country – cannot read or write. Despite
the intense efforts of the Indian government as well as global agencies, this proportion is not likely
to decrease in the near future. Of the other 700-odd million Indians who can read and write, many do
not prefer to use text for intimate communications. This is the primary reason that internet and PC
penetration is so low in India – there are only 15 million internet connected PCs in the country.
In comparison, mobile phone sales are galloping ahead at the rate of 2.5 million devices sold every
month, for a total of 88 million mobile phones as of July 2006. By the end of 2007 as many as 220 million
mobile subscriptions could be active in the country.
31
The Development of an
Agrarian Information Society
Unlike the mature industrialized societies of northern and western Europe, north America and
north eastern (or Pacific Rim) Asia, India has experienced only limited or partial industrialization.
At the same time, however, it is in the throes of rapid informationalization. Up to 56% of India’s
population lives in rural and remote locations, with fewer than 5,000 persons in a settlement.
In environments such as these, much of the material infrastructure, institutional amenities and
media connectivity that define modern urban life are simply unavailable. An overwhelming
majority of India’s 72.2% population is directly involved in agriculture and agri-processing
Shop selling dish antennae in a rural location
occupations. In such a context, the character of India’s emerging informational and knowledge
infrastructures has emerged in response to the specific needs of a largely rural and agrarian
economy.
India has a long and honorable tradition of seeking to use communications technologies for the
benefit of non-elite and rural communities. In 1937, only a year after the national broadcaster, All
India Radio, was founded, the School Broadcast Project sought to deliver curricular and extracurricular content to students. The University Broadcast Initiative began in 1965 and the Farm and
Home Broadcast Project a year later. In these ways, programming in home economics and modern
farming sciences were first developed for radio and later reformatted for television. The Indira
Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) began using radio in 1992, and terrestrial and satellite
television in 1998, to deliver curricular content to its distance-learning students across the country.
Indeed, the mandate of India’s Space Research Organization (ISRO), founded in 1969, was to
deliver information and programming on agriculture, education, health and family planning. ISRO
has since launched EDUSAT, a dedicated educational satellite whose purpose is to deliver better
segmented and targeted educational content to classrooms and homes across the country.
Antenna installed on the roof of a rural house
32
Outside of state-driven developmental initiatives, several forms of media have enjoyed wide
adoption and popularity in India. Most rural homes now have a radio and up to 43% of all Indian
households have terrestrial or satellite cable televisions. Although landlines never acquired deep
penetration in rural or semi-urban homes, in the mid-1980s, Sam Pitroda’s innovative solution
was to build Public Call Offices (PCO-s, also called ‘STD booths’) whose personnel would meter
and bill long distance calls. Although there is little contemporary documentation of the roll-out or
wider social impact of that project, it is evident that this new form of social and communications
infrastructure made a deep impact on rural society.
The success of the STD booth phenomenon in the 1980s would appear to have been an important
precedent for India’s early experimentation with Information Kiosks in rural areas. Working
with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Development
Research Foundation (IDRF), the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai built
India’s first ‘Telecenters’ in the rural areas of Pondicherry State. Other state-run and non-state
experiments, soon followed, including the Gyandoot Project, an e-governance initiative in Madhya
Pradesh, the similar Drishtee.Com in several northern Indian states, and n-Logue, a private sector
initiative working in many regions of India, incubated out of the IIT-Madras.
The three largest computer companies from the west-coast of the United States, Hewlett-
Satellite cable-tv in a rural home
Packard, Intel and Microsoft set up labs in Bangalore, in part to understand, support and prepare
for the Information Kiosk phenomenon. However, even while the larger roll-out of these
Information Kiosks was still being planned, India’s mobile revolution began, and this has changed
substantially the informational landscape of the country.
33
Careers of Indian Media in the 20th Century
Mobile phones are growing at the rate of more than 2 million phones per month, and it
is expected that by 2008 India’s subscriber base will cross 200 million. This means that
approximately one in five Indians will then own a mobile phone, and that the region will
be well on its way to being a highly networked society. Thanks also in part to innovations
in the administration of the Universal Service Obligations (USO) of mobile operators, India
is experiencing a very rapid roll-out of mobile communications networks in rural areas. It is
estimated that by 2008, three-quarters of India’s population will live under conditions of mobile
network coverage. This means that mobile phone access will not be restricted to urban Indians,
but will extend more or less equally to its rural citizens as well.
By contrast, India has a very small installed base of internet-ready PCs, although an estimated
4.5% of the total population claims to have used the internet at least once. While there are
many reasons for the limited reach of the PCs in India, these need not distract us now. It is more
important to note, however, that in an environment where there is a relatively small number of
PCs, the role and relative importance of the mobile platform are that much greater. With its still
emerging data, multimedia, gaming and video capabilities, the mobile phone appears destined
to become the primary means through which Indian users access all forms of informal, peer-topeer, networking, published, business and official content.
34
An information kiosk
A communications shop
An internet parlour
35
Field Locations, Methodology and Sample
This research was conducted in three rural districts of India: Badaun in the state of Uttar Pradesh
in the north, Satara in the state of Maharashtra in the west and Chittradurga in the state of
Karnataka in the south. The three districts were selected on the basis of their distance from
major metropolitan centers and the absence of major industrial activities, special infrastructure
projects or significant centers of cultural or historical significance, which might skew the findings
of this study. Each district is in the second quadrile of districts in its own state based on Human
Development Index rankings or proxies thereof.
When the research team visited each district, work was split up into regions that had
populations of 10 thousand, 50 thousand and two-to-five thousand. In this way, the team was
able to study a variety of small town and rural contexts.
One of the original criteria for the selection of field locations was the existence, absence or
the recent nature of mobile network coverage. In practice, however, the field team was forced
to abandon this selection criterion because it was almost impossible to find a location with a
population of more than five thousand, which was not already served by at least one mobile
operator.
After completing fieldwork in these rural locations, our research plan was further modified
as it also seemed important to study at least one community of informal urban citizens. This
would allow us to make more certain claims about the socio-economic impact of mobile
communications on rural versus urban adopters. Therefore, we conducted fieldwork in several
slums or informal settlements, in one urban location, Bangalore, following broadly the same
protocols as in the rural case.
Across all locations, we met users and non-users practising a range of occupations; there
were farmers, agri-processors, repairmen, contractors, middlemen, skilled artisans, women
entrepreneurs and homemakers.
36
Field locations for this study
Baduan
Satara
Chitradurga
Bangalore
37
In each zone we conducted a number of spot interviews through which we identified at least
10 subjects who were appropriate for more detailed ethnographic study. The subjects were
chosen on the basis of their occupation, Socio-economic classifications, age, gender, need for
communication and ownership of a mobile phone. During these ethnographies, field researchers
spent time in the subject’s work or home space in order to document and better understand
their lifestyle, context and communications practices. The daily routines, work process, business
network and communication needs of all subjects were documented in careful detail using a
variety of interactive stimulus, probes and interview techniques.
Field researchers also documented the subject’s business model, or in the case of homemakers,
the ways in which they managed their household budget. In case of adopters, we sought to
identify triggers for mobile adoption as well as differences in communicative and social practices
before and after mobile adoption. We sought to identify the specific situations or domains of
life and work in which mobile access had already brought about changes in livelihood as well as
lifestyle. In each case, we sought to understand economic and social changes on the individual
subjects as well as his or her larger family group.
In addition to these detailed anthropographies, we also conducted informal focus group
discussions with the objective of getting more qualitative information regarding each location.
At least one quarter of the sample for this phase of research was represented by women. The age
group of the subjects we interacted with varied from 18 to 50 years. We focused on recruiting
subjects of lower urban and middling rural socio-economic classification.
In addition to this fieldwork, we also conducted extensive secondary
research and met a number of experts from the mobile phone industry as well from
governmental rural development agencies, trade organizations, alongside civil society
specialists administering micro-finance institutions and other welfare service networks.
These interviews enabled us to better understand prevailing views on the socio-economic
impact and developmental opportunity represented by mobile communications platforms.
38
NORTH
WEST
SOUTH
URBAN
SLUM
SPOT INTERVIEW S
50
10
10
10
GROUP DISCUSSIONS
5
5
5
5
DEPTH INTERVIEW S
10
10
10
10
MALE : FEMALE :: 3:1 AGE GROUP: 18-50
ZONE
STATE
SEC: B, C, D, R1, R2, R3
URBAN
SLUM
TOWN
VILLAGE
VILLAGE
REMOTE
VILLAGE
50K
10K
2K
2K
NORTH
UTTAR PRADESH
UJHANI
USEHAT
SUNDARAYAN
SIKRI JUNGLE
WEST
MAHARASHTRA
PHALTAN
VADUJ
PUSESAWALI
CHORADE
SOUTH
KARNATAKA
CHELEKERE
MOKALMURU
NERLAGUNTE
DEVASAMUDRA
SOUTH
KARNATAKA
BANGALORE
39
Understanding
Remoteness
and Poverty
40
City, Town, Village
In the following pages, we present the various contexts where fieldwork was conducted.
We begin with an urban slum representation followed by a town
with a population of about fifty thousand.
We then proceed to a village with a population of about ten thousand followed by a rural remote location with a population of two to
five thousand.
The data presented is representative of the corresponding fieldwork
locations across the north, west and south zones. Although certain
characteristics would greatly vary across zones, the basic character
of each population category would be more or less similar.
41
42
Urban Slum
Population: > 1 Million
CONTEXT:
A slum could be described as an
‘informal city’, where the residents
take over a vacant plot of land and
build their own houses or huts with
whatever materials they have access
to. The slum-dwellers are usually
migrants from distant villages, who
come to the city in the hope of
earning more than they used to
in their villages or owing to their
aspirations of experiencing citylife. Many end up in cities due to
droughts or other natural calamities
that render their rural, agrarian lives
untenable.
CHALLENGES:
As many of the slums are not
legalized, they have no support
from the government and have to
determine ways of accessing basic
infrastructure like water, which they
have to fill from nearby public water
sources on a daily basis and
electricity, which they usually use
by tapping electric wires near
their huts.
Slum-dwellers have to live under
huge limitations of space, in highly
unhygienic circumstances and make
do with whatever resources they
have. They usually have no proof of
identity, other than ration cards and
in a few cases, bank accounts, which
they procure with the help of
influential contacts.
RESPONSES:
Due to the transitory nature of their
habitation, they do not invest in
higher quality or expensive products
and only procure essential commodities. They usually share resources
and work in teams, especially on
construction sites.
43
44
Town
Population: 50K - 100K
CONTEXT:
A town with a population of about
fifty thousand is similar to a city
in terms of the infrastructure and
certain aspects of modernization. A
town acts as a junction for several
villages in the sub-district to which
it belongs. It usually has a well-networked bus terminus and railway
station. The town also hosts ‘mandis’ or wholesale markets for various commodities.
CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES:
A town has most of the facilities
available in the city but with a limited variety. For specialized services
and better quality products, people
go to the city. Those who are attracted to the lifestyle that cities
offer – especially the youth – often
migrate there for better education
and career prospects.
A town has a few entertainment
options like a cinema hall, an
auditorium and community centers
that host public events. But the
movies that are screened are usally
in regional languages. People who
want to watch Bollywood or
Hollywood movies have to watch
them on VCDs or through
TV channels.
45
46
Village
Population: 10K - 20 K
CONTEXT:
In a village with a population of ten
thousand, we see fairly good
infrastructure and basic
amenities like government offices,
high schools, a few degree colleges,
clinics and, in some cases, even
hospitals. These villages are
usually sources of basic facilities for
all other smaller villages in their
vicinity. ‘Haats’ or weekly markets
are held in these villages on a fixed
day each week, when rural farmers
sell and purchase farm produce,
artefacts, household items, and
products from nearby towns or
cities as well as accessing repair
services. People from smaller
villages usually share hired vehicles
to transport bulk purchases. These
purchases are made to suffice for
the coming weeks or months.
The rural farmers are in constant
touch with the bigger towns and
cities and aspire to migrate there
for a better lifestyle and a higher
income.
47
48
Remote Rural Location
Population: 2K - 5K
CONTEXT:
In remote villages, agriculture continues to be the primary occupation.
Most rural farmers either own or rent
cattle and bullock carts for ploughing
their fields. Few have tractors and
other sophisticated farming equipment. But in a village with a population of five thousand and above, the
rural farmers practice several other
occupations apart from agriculture.
There is a considerable population of
artisans and skilled craftsmen who
continue their ancestral occupations
and sell their products in weekly
markets in nearby towns or to middlemen who sell these products in
distant towns and cities.
CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES:
Rural farmers rely on manual labor
for most household activities due
to scarce electricity. Houses are
mostly built by the rural farmers
themselves out of locally available
materials. Basic infrastructure, like
public transport, electricity and
water supply, are scarce. Rural farmers have to travel at least 5 kms to
reach the nearest bus stop or access
other forms of shared transport.
The amenities available are restricted to a panchayat office, a primary
school, a post office and in a few
cases, a basic dispensary. For all
other facilities or specialized services, rural farmers have to travel to
the nearest town or city.
49
Infrastructural Issues in
Rural Locations
ELECTRICITY
In most of the remote locations,
especially in the north, access to
electricity is scarce or even absent.
In fact, we came across some
villages where the electrical poles
had been put up some months ago
but the wires were yet to be installed. In most of the villages there
were power cuts ranging anywhere
between six hours to eighteen hours.
In some cases, electricity was
available for a certain set number of
hours in a day.
HEALTHCARE
Settlements with a population of
fifteen thousand or less do not have
adequate medical facilities. Some villages have basic consultancy services
but no complex surgical procedures
are possible there. There are usually
no pharmacies in the villages and the
rural farmers have to travel at least
5-10 kms to go to a bigger village or
a town to access healthcare facilities.
The image in the left shows a rural
dispensary with basic medical
facilities.
50
TRANSPORT
Public transport is still scarce in
remote locations. Most of the
rural farmers have to make do with
shared space on someone else’s
vehicle: bullock-carts, tractors,
two-wheelers or in hired vehicles for
transporting goods to other markets.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
In remote villages, few rural farmers have access to landlines. There
are usually one or two public phone
booths, which act as contact points
for the entire village. In one case, we
came across a phone booth where
the owner had put up a loudspeaker
to announce the name of the rural
farmers on whose behalf he had
received the call. The booth owner
asked the caller to call back after
some time, when the rural farmers
concerned could be available at the
booth. The owner charged a nominal
fee for each such announcement.
51
SCARCITY OF ELECTRICITY
Due to limited electricity, rural farmers use batteries to run electrical devices on a regular basis. In most of the
remote villages, mobile phone owners
used these shared batteries to charge
their phones or frequently traveled to
nearby towns or villages, where
electricity was more regularly
available, just to charge their phones.
The image below shows a mobile
phone being charged using a vehicle
charger connected to a battery.
52
40
LIMITED PUBLIC TRANSPORT OPTIONS
In many villages, local people invest
in vehicles like jeeps or vans to start
shuttle taxi services throughout the
day from a village to neighboring villages or town markets. These services
are in great demand, especially on
market days when they are crammed
with rural farmers and goods that
need to be taken to the markets for
sale. The same vehicles bring back
the rural farmers and their purchases
at the end of the market day.
The image on the left is an example of
innovative usage of available resources as a solution for infrastructural limitations, the ‘jugaad’, an ‘assembled’
vehicle used for taxi service. Its structure is made out of second-hand components of other vehicles like tractors
and goods carriers while a tin sheet
acts as the roofing material. It uses a
gen-set engine which itself is put to
various other tasks like pumping water
for irrigation, producing electricity for
household consumption and for grinding foodgrains and so on.
53
LIMITED ENTERTAINMENT OPTIONS
Radio is the most commonly found
medium of entertainment as it runs
on batteries and is comparatively
cheap. Televisions, VCD players and
music systems are also found in many
villages where there is some
electrical supply. Apart from these
forms of home media, folk music,
dances, festivals, fairs and touring
talkies are other forms of seasonal
entertainment. The image on the
left shows a rural farmers carrying
his radio with him when commuting
between his farm and house.
Rural farmers usually get together in
temples or public squares for
devotional renditions or for sharing
local gossip and information. They
usually travel to towns and cities to
go to cinema halls or to buy music and
movie CDs. The image alongside is an
example of shared usage of resources
and devices incluing batteries, music
players and music CDs by youngsters.
54
LIMITED INFORMATION DISSEMINATION
SOURCES
There are no newspapers or any other
forms of published media available
in villages. Rural farmers rely on peer
network for news and gossip. Local
governing bodies, welfare associations and NGOs take the initiative to
put up essential information on message boards, pamphlets or painted
messages on walls of public building.
55
Purchasing Power Parity in US Dollars
Above $20K
$1.5K - 20K
$1.5K
Population in Millions
TIER 5
TIER 3 & 4
75m - 100m
1500m - 175m
TIER 2
4000m
Below $1.5K
Global pyramid
TIER 1
Source: Prahalad and Hart 2002
3.3 Understanding Poverty and Rurality
Many of those involved in the global debate on development, poverty and the role of technology are familiar with the pyramidal view of
society, popularized by C. K. Prahalad and S. Hart. For this reason, we begin by presenting our understanding of Indian society in these terms.
56
Purchasing Power Parity in US Dollars
Population in Millions
Above $ 15,600
68m
$11,700 - $ 15,600
75m
$7,800K - $11,700
166m
$ 4,000 - $ 7,800
415m
Under $1 a day
476m
India pyramid
Source: CKS EER Team based on NCAER 2002
When we compare India with the world, we see that its income categories are broadly similar. India hosts some of the richest people in the
world, but it is also home to many of the poorest people – fully one quarter of the world’s poorest people live in India. On the other hand,
one sixth of the world’s population lives in India. The India picture, therefore, is representative of the world as a whole.
The additional line drawn on the India pyramid represents those people living on less than a dollar a day. This is internationally understood
to be the threshold of extreme poverty and marginalization from mainstream economic processes.
57
Purchasing Power Parity in US Dollars
Population in Millions
68m
Above $ 15,600
3.50
$11,700 - $ 15,600
3.42
$7,800K - $11,700
6.33
2.17
2.83
75m
7.50
166m
$ 4,000 - $ 7,900
415m
9.41
25.16
Under $1 a day
476m
5.16
Urba n
Poverty by location
34.50
Rural
Source: CKS EER Team based on NCAER 2002
By splitting each income slab into urban and rural populations, we are able to discover the considerably greater
extent of rural poverty.
58
Population
108m
Households
21.6m
Habitats
Population Categories
35
>1m
Degrees of urbanity and remoteness
129m
25.8m
388
1m 100k 20
85m
17m
1884
171m
34.2m
2119 5
5 20K
638m
127.6m
5744 97
<5 K
Source: CKS EER Team based on Census of India 1991 and MART 2001
Whereas traditional conceptualizations of village and town draw a hard line between urban and rural populations, in reality we see that there are degrees of
urbanity, and correspondingly degrees of institutional, infrastructural and lifestyle amenities available in each environment. When examining smaller cities or
townships of 20,000 to 100,000 population, one observes that residents enjoy access to most of the amenities of modern life, including colleges, hospitals,
governance centers, banks, internet cafes, and so forth. But in the segment below, from 5,000 to 20,000, all these amenities may or may not be actually available
in the local area. Residents must travel to the next largest township to avail of these services. These shades of urbanity and remoteness are represented in this
pyramidal diagram. According to figures from the 2001 Census of India, 56.5% of the population is resident in truly rural and remote environments, with a
population of less than 5,000 persons, which also enjoy the least number and variety of services.
59
Understanding the countryside
>5 Acres
<5 Acres
11% Rural HH
46% Rural HH
43% Rural HH
No Land
Segmenting rural society
Source: Department of Agriculture GOI 1996
In rural environments, the most important determinant of wealth and status is household or family landholding. Most social dynamics of caste in a village in India can
be discovered through an analysis of its landholding patterns. As seen in this diagram, only 11% of rural households possess landholdings of more that five acres. By
contrast, 46% of rural households have small landholdings, of less than five acres. Another 43% of rural households own no land at all.
This means that those who do not own land must find employment working on the lands of those who have large surpluses. Furthermore, those who do own small
landholdings find that is barely sufficient for their family’s nutritional needs. They must, therefore, involve themselves in various forms of home industry,
agricultural processing, or other forms of trade or transportation activities, which will earn them a supplementary income.
Our study includes representative examples from all these sections of rural society, as well as some urban case studies. It is, therefore, representative across rural
India for the regions under investigation.
60
LAND > 5 ACRES
LAND < 5 ACRES
NO LAND
Surplus farming
Sustenance farming
Share cropping
Produce for sale as well as
family consumption
Produce used only for family
consumption
Work as labor on other's
farms for share of produce
Substantial agricultural
incomes
Supplement nutritional
requirements
Bare nutritional sustenance
Fulltime farming +
agri - processing
Parallel business
Unemployed and seasonally
underemployed
Landed Dominant Castes
Middling Status
Lowest Socioeconomic Status
Modern farming techniques,
investment in the land
Rain - dependant agriculture
N/A
11% of Rural India
46% of Rural India
43% of Rural India
83m Population
339m Population
318m Population
61
Purchasing Power Parity in US Dollars
TIER 5
Population in Millions
Above $ 20K
75m - 100m
$1.5K - $ 20K
TIER 3 & 4
1500m - 1750m
$1.5K
TIER 2
4000m
Below $ 1.5K
TIER 1
The Prahalad Pyramid
62
Source: Prahalad and Hart 2002
Beyond the Bottom of the Pyramid
C. K. Prahalad and Stuart Hart have made a salutary contribution to global business and developmental conversations by calling people’s
attention to the ‘Bottom-of-the-Pyramid’, a conceptual strategy for thinking about the world’s population as a whole, that we have also used
to explain other kinds of variation above. Prahalad, moreover, offers corporations strategies for discovering their fortunes ‘at the bottom of
the pyramid’. But is the world really a pyramid? What makes us think so? Prahalad’s canonical diagram is supported by numbers from the
UNDP and other global development agencies, indicating that according to Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), households around the world do
organize roughly as a pyramid, as shown by Prahlad and Hart.
However, as we know from the laws governing large numbers, large populations do not tend to cluster as pyramids, but rather as bell curves.
This means that even when we take an arbitrary cut-off such as the one-dollar a day mark, and find that roughly 30% of the world’s households fall below that mark, there are still further and further gradations in the extent of poverty, destitution, and lack of access to cash and
capital in this slab of the world’s households. It is, therefore. necessary not merely to understand how many people live on less than a dollar
a day, but also how many people are not a part of the money economy at all, subsisting rather on barter exchanges and relationships of mutuality and agri-feudal prestation with their kinsmen or with various external communities. How many people live on the charity of others
or subsist within the care of state and non-state institutions? How many live under conditions of war and civil strife to the point where the
financial system has completely broken down? How many live under conditions of war and civil strife to the point where the financial system
has completely broken down?
63
Purchasing Power Parity in US Dollars
Above $20K
6.8%
7.5%
$1.5K - $20K
16.6%
41.5%
$1.5K
TIER2
47.6%
Below $1.5K
Below $1
Not part of money economy
Institutionalised
64
These kinds of distinctions are drawn to approximate detail in our alternative ‘vertical-bell curve’ diagram in Figure 3.20. Whereas Prahalad calls
for a transformation of his pyramid into a diamond, through an expansion of the middle classes (109), such terminology can be very
misleading, because viewed correctly, the world already bulges towards the middle, tapering off towards the upper and lower ends. It is
because vast sections of the rural poor exist entirely or partially outside the money economy that the Government of India has long used the
fulfillment of daily nutritional needs as a measure for determining households falling under the poverty line. What Prahalad’s ‘diamonds’
really represent, therefore, is the progressive entry of rural households into the money economy, a process that is accelerating rapidly in certain
regions of India that are also urbanizing and industrializing (in the preceding India overview).
Whereas these lower-most market segments are perhaps not the most compelling for global corporations, a comprehensive view of the
world’s households in these terms is an essential prerequisite for an adequate modulation of corporate responsibility efforts against the
business activities of the corporation. Whereas the business activities of a corporation may benefit those in the middle of the bell-curve,
corporate responsibility efforts can help marginal populations enter the median sections, which may result in an expansion of the potential
market.
Moreover, in order to actually design welfare or charitable services using telecommunications for the lowest 25% of society, as proposed in later
sections of this report, it is necessary to understand the constituent members of that large block of humanity in more finely-segmented,
sensitive and descriptively accurate terms. The ‘anthropographies’ we have undertaken as part of this report are only a preliminary step towards this goal.
65
The Impoverishment of Context and its Mitigation
To help those of us from cities understand the concept of rurality better, we describe
here one of the districts where we conducted fieldwork, Badaun in Uttar Pradesh.
In India there are about 600 districts. Each district is divided into a number of subdistricts and there are a number of villages inside a sub-district. On average there are
about 1,000 villages in each district. In the case of Badaun, one quarter of the villages
do not have electricity coverage. Literacy is lower than the national average and quite
at variance with the 50% literacy levels that may be found in the west and the south.
There are a substantial number of primary schools, a reasonable number of middle
schools, but a sharp fall off in the number of secondary schools and only eight colleges
for three million people. There are 22 hospitals, including all kinds of dispensaries,
traditional as well as modern, state as well as private. In all of these ways, we see that
residents of this district lack both basic infrastructure, as well as specialized forms of
social infrastructure, or institutions where specialized personnel and human resources
may be consulted.
Even the most affluent rural households (the top 11% land-owing families) in Badaun
and similar regions may be impoverished due to their location in this rural context,
because they cannot access infrastructure and services at any cost. They might have
the latest mobile phones or they may own vehicles and other resources to navigate the
rural landscape better than others but they will still suffer poor connectivity and poor
roads. Like their poorer neighbors, they will find only basic healthcare, education and
even commercial facilities available to them in their immediate environment.
66
Whereas there is no solution to the challenges of hard infrastructure in rural areas other than to
actually design and build cheaper and better roads, sewage and sanitation systems, electricity
lines, telecommunications systems and media, the non-availability of other people in the
immediate environment can be addressed to some extent by examining people’s traditional
solution to this problem: rural India has coped with the challenge of remoteness through weekly
‘haats’.
A ‘haat’ is a weekly regional market where non-agricultural goods for household or professional
use are bought and sold. Haats allow people seeking to supplement their household income to sell
wares created at home during the week. It also allows them greater access to goods and services
than they enjoy at other times of the week, as professional as well as part-time traders will come
to this location from different parts of the countryside. The weekly market creates a temporary
cluster of a large variety of goods and services available that will not be there the next day. One
must know the landscape to know where, on a particular day, one can find such a clustering and
there a rural family can choose to set up a bedspread and sell the produce of their own small plot
of land or other goods made at home. On average, about 300 vendors collect to set up stalls at a
‘haat’. Rent is charged on their stalls. There are over 4,000 ‘haats’ across India’s 600,000 villages.
The average sales per day at a haat is about Euros 25,000. Most ‘haats’ are held once a week, while
20% are held more than once.
67
Badaun District
POPULATION: 3.1 MILLION
AREA: 5168 SQ.KM.
SUB-DISTRICTS: 6
NO. OF TOWNS: 23
NO.OF VILLAGES: 2081
VILLAGES WITH ELECTRICITY: 1464
LITERACY: 25%
PRIMARY SCHOOLS: 1579
MIDDLE SCHOOLS: 312
HIGH SCHOOLS: 57
COLLEGES: 8
AMENITIES
VILLAGES
(TOTAL 2081)
RANGE
< 5kms
5 - 10 kms
>10 kms
HOSPITALS: 125
PHC
26
339
839
576
BUS STATIONS: 191
RAILWAY STATIONS: 18
Secondary School
46
594
608
47
Cooperative Banks
30
277
842
622
Commercial Banks
72
754
710
248
Bus service facility
79
704
645
169
Railway service facility
17
120
348
1297
6
159
494
1118
76
636
490
406
COMMERCIAL BANKS: 75
RURAL/CO-OPERATIVE BANKS: 90
Source: Census of India, 2001
Cinema Halls
Landline access
Source: Census of India, 1991
68
Map of Badaun District
90 km
20K
27K
30K
25K
60K
150K
22K
52K
20K
33K
120 km
69
Socio-Economic
Dynamics of
Mobile
Adoption
70
Sociology of Mobile Adoption
In general, mobile communications appear to be of greatest utility for those who already have a
wide network of personal and business contacts, who tend to travel for reasons of either lifestyle
or livelihood, and who are already engaged in some kind of entrepreneurial or business activity.
In the case of female homemakers, like Rani (p. 115) and Sushila (p. 156), therefore, mobile phones
have only limited value, and are not adopted as an essential family resource. In the case of Sunil
(p. 98), and Sunita (p. 133), whose businesses operate at a very local scale, and whose normal
practices do not require on-going communication or remote coordination, we likewise see that
a mobile phone might be helpful, but it does not prove revolutionary. For the couple Smeeta and
Ravi (p. 118), who run a hairdressing business, a landline serves most all of their communications
needs, and mobile access likewise offers only supplementary benefits.
Contrast these cases with those of the farmer Ahmed (p. 93), the wholesaler Suresh (p. 124),
the transporter Amol (p. 138), and the itinerant salesman Mahesh (p. 147). In all of these cases,
the agricultural, sales, distribution and retail activities of the entrepreneur are thoroughly
transformed on account of mobile access. As we will describe in greater detail in the sections
following, these transformations occur on account of better access to market information,
improved abilities to coordinate travel and transport, the ability to manage remote activities, and
an ability to better plan work time and thus increase the number of remunerative work days in a
week, month or year.
In these ways, we observe that our initial hypothesis, which proposed that the greatest impact of
mobile phones would be seen on those individuals with professions that are time, location and
information sensitive, is broadly corroborated by our field findings.
71
On the other hand, the adoption of mobile phones by individuals, households and communities, who have
hitherto lacked any comparable means of communication, can also transform their social and communicative
behavior, and this can have a transformative effect on their identity and their relation to their immediate local
and kinship networks. This chapter also seeks to identify and describe these social transformations that occur
on account of mobile adoption.
Finally, we observe that there are some economic transformations that occur not on account of an immediate
impact on business, but rather owing to social and social network transformations. These longer term and
cumulative socio-economic changes are dealt with in the last section of this chapter.
Before we proceed any further, however, some caveats may be in order. In all of our thinking and deliberation
about technology and social, cultural and economic change, we recognize no technology can be the cause of
social or economic change, but may still serve as an essential ingredient or catalyst for such change, as well as
the necessary means and mechanism for the new social processes it makes possible. In the case of the mobile
phone, we also recognize that the device cannot be uniquely responsible for certain large scale or ‘megatrends’ in society, such as urbanization, individuation and the like, which proceed quite outside the question of
mobile access.
The adoption and use of mobile phones by particular subjects, however, may accelerate and intensify preexisting predilections and tendencies or actually enable the accomplishment of long-standing needs, desires or
fantasies. We may, therefore, more accurately describe the new phenomena as social and economic dynamics
which come about in relation to the mobile communications.
72
Social Dynamics
We observe that access to mobile connectivity brings about transformations in (i) Personal Identity, (ii) Family
Relationships and (iii) Social Networks. These changes are discussed below.
Personal Identity:
When a subject adopts a mobile phone, his or her relationship to their immediate social context is considerably
transformed. Users perceive that they have entered the modern, urban, metropolitan and global public
spheres. They see that they have entered ‘our world’, that, in fact, there is now only one world, of which we
are all a part. Conversely, they evaluate one another and acknowledge other recent adopters as individuals
who are coming up in the world by getting connected.
Users now have at their disposal a new means of contacting and remaining in touch with institutions, people
in positions of authority and members of their own business or personal network. This affords them an
enhanced sense of agency.
New adopters are also reciprocally locatable and contactable, and this is why they are often very eager to
disseminate their newly acquired number as widely as possible. They recognize not only that the phone can
expand their business activities but also that it serves to establish their social identity in a new way.
As a consequence of their increased locatability and contactability, users find that their credibility and creditworthiness increases in relation to long-standing business partners as well as new anonymous or public
institutional environments.
73
Family Relationships:
Our research among the subjects of this study corroborates phenomena first encountered in our prior field studies,
which examined the individuating effects of mobile technology. Mobile phone adopters perceived themselves to be
more autonomous in their actions with reference to their larger joint families and progressively became more and
more individuated from the collective decision-making processes of their families and of larger kinship structures.
The physical mobility of the device allows private conversations to be conducted outside the immediate social space
of the homes. Social and communicative behavior that might have been earlier family-to-family or group-to-group,
mediated through a collective landline located within the family room of a home or indeed across two homes,
becomes increasingly a user-to-user bubble of communication, which excludes all other forms of group sociality. The
user’s identity also comes to be strongly aligned with a particular mobile device, even in rural areas, for although the
sharing of devices is widely observed, such shared devices always have a primary owner and a series of borrowers
– the primary ownership of the device is never in doubt.
It is generally easier to maintain existing long distance ties, especially for married women with their natal families.
Farmers, shopkeepers and tradesmen all find that they are less dependent than they once were on immediately colocated personal, kinship-based and business relationships for the conduct of their business activities.
74
Social Network:
The evidence from the 16 case studies presented here, as well as other data collected over the course of the study,
suggests the following:
(i) Long distance business ties are more easily maintained.
(ii) There is a decreased dependency on proximal, local relationships.
The character of a subject’s social connectedness is transformed as more numerous contacts are built up at greater
distances from his or her locus and habitus. The category of casual (weak-tie) friendship emerges, as opposed to
fraternal (strong-tie) friendship, and it comes to encompass more and more of the total number of social contacts
in a subject’s life. There are more and more weak-tie relationships in a person’s life and as a consequence, less
dependence on his or her closest multi-tie relationships from the subject’s village and immediate locality. Eventually,
there are fewer and fewer long-term multi-tie relationships that cut across service transactions, business, kinship and
informal personal relationships.
We note once again that all of these processes occur widely in society, and are not solely a consequence of the
mobile phone. Large scale phenomena such as urbanization, industrialization, informationalization and a decreased
dependence on social forms predicated on the patrilineal inheritance of agricultural land all have a role in bringing
about these dimensions of social change. The mobile phone does not uniquely cause these transformations so much
as it may further enable and accelerate them.
75
Business Dynamics
Although our research indicates that in the context of rural India, personal, kinship based and professional networks
overlap to a great extent, we also find that the mobile phone enables the maximally strategic deployment or
leveraging, of personal networks for business purposes. The mobile phone appears to be a key instrument for
unleashing the potential advantages of one’s entire social network for the accomplishment of any given task or the
resolution of any challenge at hand.
The 16 case studies presented in this document have already outlined a number of specific means through which
mobile access transforms the livelihoods, business practices, revenues and personal incomes of small-scale artisans,
tradesmen, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, farmers and others involved in diverse forms of agriculture, agri-processing
and agricultural distribution activities. In our further analysis of these transformations, we find that mobile phones
have a role in (i) accessing market information, (ii) coordinating travel and transport, (iii) increasing remunerative
workdays, and (iv) managing remote activities.
76
Access to Market Information:
As has already been discussed through the case studies presented above, the rates of commodities can vary in
different market centers substantially and the cost of travel in terms of opportunity as well as transport can vary
greatly. An entrepreneur must, therefore, be able to make real-time decisions about where and how to unload a
perishable commodity as the rates may fluctuate widely, depending on the season and the on-going play of supply
and demand. Thanks to the mobile phone, critical market information becomes available to those who are in the
business of buying and selling commodities.
All forms of distance communications have a role in optimizing the functioning of agri-produce markets. Personal
mobile communications ensure that there is an increase in the number of individuals with direct access to this
information, and that this information continues to be updated even while sellers are actually in transit to their final
market destinations.
77
Coordinating Travel and Transport:
Mobile adopters find that they are newly empowered to negotiate geography. As has been described in early
sections of this report, rural life must often be lived across a considerable geographical expanse, with specialized
human and institutional resources distributed in the landscape at great intervals from one another.
Rural citizens have limited access to public forms of transportation and the cost of such transport is
disproportionately high for them. Moreover, subjects cannot work and therefore cannot earn income on days
when they must travel to nearby villages to seek service transactions. All these factors cumulatively result in an
extraordinary high cost for seeking institutional services, whether discretionary or essential in nature. Mobile
communications offer a highly cost-effective alternative for a number of everyday life situations; these may result
in avoiding the need to travel, or being able to accomplish more objectives in a given journey, or even being able to
ensure that the purpose of the travel will actually be accomplished.
Furthermore, as has already been documented, mobile communications allow a number of rural farmers
and traders to optimize transport as well as travel by sharing or distributing its costs. These subjects are able
to ensure that every time transport or transit is commissioned, the transaction delivers maximal value for
themselves, their family and their wider business and social network.
78
Managing Remote Activities:
Landlines have long allowed metropolitan and elite subjects working in bureaucratic institutions and in highly
organized and hierarchical production facilities of an industrial nature to be in two places at once, so to speak.
This possibility is now also available to those whose lifestyle and livelihood preclude situated presence in a
single, bounded architectural environment.
As was first documented by CKS in 2003, street vendors, couriers, mobile tradesmen and other non-clerical,
non-salaried urban entrepreneurs have benefited from mobile access by being able to manage and coordinate
resources, modes of production and client relationships at multiple sites in real time.
When members of the urban or rural poor acquire a mobile phone number, they are able to reconfigure their
social and business networks in new ways that are advantageous to them; and they are able to gain access to
new clientele who may contact and contract them remotely without having to be physically co-located in the
informal sectors of the city where their everyday trade is normally conducted.
79
Increasing Renumerative Workdays:
As we documented through several case studies presented herein, many urban as well as rural families are
involved in a series of income-generating enterprises: no single enterprise proves adequate to sustain the
family, and agricultural income may therefore be supplemented with part-time employment in a factory, with
agri-processing activities within the home, and with other supplementary sales of labor on the part of one
or more members of the household. In all such situations, the number of non-working days in the year can
be minimized, and the resulting time available optimized, through better communication and coordination
amongst members of the family vis-à-vis external employers, business partners, or other transactants.
80
Cumulative Socio-Economic Dynamics
It is our view that a series of small yet salient social and communicative changes are occurring in rural India,
which better enable the flow of capital. For this reason, in a shorthand way, it may be erroneously said
that ‘social capital is being created due to mobile phones’. Rather than using the indistinct, unfocussed and
confusing terminology of social capital theory, however, we would prefer to say that older forms of social
connectedness are giving way to newer ones. These new forms of connectedness are configured so that they
can be maximally and strategically leveraged for revenue, income and other capital gains.
In addition to the immediate business consequences of mobile phones, which have been discussed above,
we have observed certain other economic effects of mobile phones that arise as a consequence of their social
impact. These include (i) increased credibility, (ii) strengthened business networks (iii) leveraging of social
networks for business.
81
Increased Credibility:
To the extent that mobile adopters become locatable, become contactable, and thereby increase their credibility and their
visibility to institutions as well as members of their formal or informal business network, they find that they enjoy better
access to credit and also enjoy better credit terms. This also has an immediate impact on their businesses. Furthermore,
business networks themselves are strengthened.
Strengthened Business Networks:
Producers, distributors, processors, re-distributors and retail sales organizations find themselves to be more tightly aligned
to each others’ needs and these informal value chains come to be more densely, tightly and optimally configured.
Leveraging Social Networks for Business Purposes:
As we have already argued above, it appears that mobile phones most effectively and optimally translate personal social
relations into opportunities for mutual economic benefit. To the extent that this is true, business practices change as a
result of ongoing sociality through mobile technology.
82
Do Mobile Networks bring about Market Efficiencies?
Although we have demonstrated a number of individual cases where significant economic benefits and social changes
come about as a consequence of mobile adoption, the question stands as to whether these benefits are only relative, or are
merely early-adopter phenomena, the benefits of which asymmetrically accrue only to those users who have been quick to
adopt mobile phones at the expense of all those members of the economically active population who have not yet been able
to adopt mobile phones. Once the larger portion of society adopts mobile phones, will these benefits fade away? Will the
increased income documented herein prove to be temporary blips that fall back to depressed levels once a larger number of
individuals begin to acquire the same advantage?
While early adopters are certainly enjoying some competitive advantages over non-adopters, which are likely to ease over
time, we also find that in many cases the mobile phone offers a new and more effective means of working, the advantages
of which are not merely competitive, but accrue across an entire industry. In other words, these new ways of working
do represent market efficiencies over the old ways of conducting business. Moreover, we expect that over time these
communication networks will only grow in their value and their utility to end users as new forms of personal, business and
credit information begin to flow through the network in more and more complex ways.
Nevertheless, new research in this direction is also required, to address this question completely and scientifically. Such
macroeconomic studies may find the microeconomic models already presented in this study to be useful starting points for
framing questions or building models.
83
Opportunities
for
Mobile
Development
84
The Consensus on Mobile Development
We believe that there are three major media platforms, which will together define the
telecommunications ecology in emerging economy environments. These are: (i) the internetconnected-PC, (ii) interactive television, and (iii) the mobile phone. A possible fourth platform,
the gaming console, appears more suited for mature industrial society consumption. The relative
penetrations of each of these platforms in the homes and offices of various emerging economies
will be determined by the modalities of interaction and the types of content preferred by users in
each region.
In all such scenarios, we should recognize that an overwhelming 42.3% (NRS 2001) of Indian
households have access to television and by 2008 another estimated 39.27% households will have
access to mobile phones. By contrast, PC penetrations would not cross 5.1% in the same period
(Maran 2005). This means that the key media devices which can serve as the vectors for education,
healthcare, infotainment and for any other service sector are the mobile phone and the television.
New and innovative ways for the devices to interact with one another will create the greatest
value for end users.
As a part of this research we had an opportunity to interview a representative sample of
development experts working at the regional as well as at the grass-root level, and members of
the mobile industry including operators and telecom regulators. We have found that while there
was wide consensus that the dissemination of mobile technology further into the countryside
and deeper into the population was an unqualified social good, the mobile phone was not being
seen as a vehicle for specific development initiatives. More problematically, few of those surveyed
could propose means whereby institutional services might be delivered on the mobile platform.
85
We believe that there are several reasons for this. Whereas the debate on the use of ICTs for
development came to occupy the global stage .alongside, the WTO talks in Seattle in 1999. it has
always been assumed that the platform of choice, i.e., the ICT platform of choice would be the
internet-connected PC. The astonishing growth in the global mobile market from 2002 to the
present clearly demonstrates the fallacy of that supposition. Unfortunately, the vast majority of
phones manufactured and used by the largest number of people around the world today also
have the most meager computational power and interactive possibility.
Those traditionally involved in regulating the telecom industry are used to seeing the mobile
sector in terms of the voice-only capabilities of old landline networks. Furthermore, the current
configuration of operator licensing and operator service delivery appears to promote a model
whereby peer-to-peer services are dominated by basic voice with the supplement of text
messaging, whereas all value-added services are conceived in terms of traditional broadcast
media and therefore focus on entertainment, published content, and news, rather than on more
richly interactive services and service transactions, or on more complex peer-to-peer transactions,
however multi-modally or data-packet-switch enabled. As the number of users in India and
economies similar to India’s grows to a critical mass, we will find that there suddenly exists a
radical new opportunity to deliver services and to enable peer-to-peer transactions that are more
sophisticated than have ever been thought possible before. To meet this new opportunity, we
must learn to think of mobile devices in new ways and we must seek to understand the everyday
challenges and life needs of end users and to tap the subtle forms of micro innovation that these
users practice in using this technology to live their everyday lives.
Finally, despite its emerging text and multimedia capabilities, we should recognize that the
mobile phone is fundamentally an audio or oral-aural platform, while the internet-PC is primarily
a textual and visual platform. In the context of India, with 450 million non-literates, this means
that mobile technologies can provide forms of interactive services to end users whom the
PC could never reach. The design of increasingly complex audio-based experiences, perhaps
supplemented with visual cues, therefore, should become the highest developmental priority for
diverse stakeholders in India’s information and telecommunications community.
86
Urban Versus Rural Demand for Mobile Services
Whereas this research has been primarily focused on understanding the needs and the everyday
life challenges faced by the rural poor, we have also spent considerable time and energy in trying
to understand the differences between urban and rural lifestyles and consequently, the different
challenges faced by the rural poor and the urban poor with specific reference to the opportunities
afforded by mobile technology.
In rural India, land ownership has a determinative effect on caste status, access to capital,
modality of urbanization and connectedness to one’s rural origins. In addition, it also serves
as a primary means for the institutional establishment of a person’s identity: the fact of land
ownership. In urban areas, residents of informal cities (often referred to as slums or irregular
colonies) face a significant disadvantage in being geo-spatially unlocatable in the eyes of the
state. These individuals and their households also find themselves at the lowest and marginal
income levels and are therefore economically disadvantaged vis-à-vis middle class and affluent
citizens. This means that although they are in physical proximity to an array of specialized human
resources and institutional organizations, both public and private, they are often unable to
transact with these entities on account of the relatively high cost of such institutional services
and their lack of appropriate forms of personal identity and documented domicile. By contrast,
affluent middling and impoverished sections of rural India face the challenge of remoteness in
gaining access to specialized institutional services.
87
A strategy for addressing rural populations as well as the urban poor
W EALT H
Remoteness
Urban
Rural
Population living below $1 a
day
Identity
88
While both urban and rural poor could benefit from mobile-enabled services in areas such as education, healthcare, finance,
governance and infotainment, the nature of their needs is subtly different from one another. In urban areas, mobile technologies
can most benefit informal citizens by providing them new forms of digital and networked identity that allows them to interact
better with proximal institutions. In rural areas, such institutions are altogether lacking, so users must be provided with the
means of receiving services and benefits from institutions located far away from them.
Rural subjects seeking to access specialized services suffer tremendous opportunity costs in terms of daily wages foregone and
substantial transportation costs, accommodation and stay costs when they are away from their home. Services provided on a
mobile platform may also prove far cheaper per transaction than live face-to-face alternatives.
The establishment of the user’s identity on the mobile network and his or her access to a mobile experience represent two
integral and mutually essential arms of any successful, effective mobile service. Any solution to these dual challenges will require
innovations across the mobile industry involving the designers of handsets, on-device applications and feature developers,
the manufactures of network based technology and solutions, third-party service providers and providers of network services.
Serious new questions about the user’s right to privacy and the state’s access to network-hosted user information and
services quickly arise and must be handled with responsibility at the time of conceptualizing and developing these new mobile
experiences.
The Design of New Mobile Services
Since the industrial revolution, we have witnessed a great increase in the concentrations of people, knowledge, and increasingly
specialized forms of human labor in larger and larger urban centers. We have also witnessed increasingly large concentrations
of material, in raw, semi-processed and finished states, moving in and out of cities. In contemporary India, large cities continue
to serve as nodal centers for the wholesale distribution and redistribution of commodities to and from the rural countryside.
Whereas this ‘point-to-multipoint’ or indeed ‘multipoint-to-point’ modality of exchange has served us well up until this point, it is
inherently less efficient and more wasteful of money, time, fuel and emissions than a networked model which operates more or
less ‘peer-to-peer’. We believe that the rapid roll-out and adoption of mobile phones could allow thousands of rural communities
across India to coordinate their production, consumption and distribution needs more effectively than they ever could in the
past and with less dependence on urban centers than before. Our approach to the conceptualization and design of new mobile
services, therefore, emphasizes emerging peer-supported approaches, over merely mobile-enabling existing institutional or
broadcast models of service delivery.
Through participant observation and interviews with diverse subjects in rural India, we have identified seven major service
sectors where mobile communications could have a revolutionary impact. These include transport and transit, microcommerce,
finance, healthcare, governance, education and infotainment.
89
Transportation Services
Route 1
8.30 A.M.
90
As has already been documented in the study, many rural entrepreneurs must make elaborate
arrangements for the dispatch and delivery of commodity and material resources across long
distances. These transportation arrangements are often integrated into their existing personal,
social and business networks. This further means that those seeking to engage in long-distance
commerce must already have at their disposal the means for the safe transport and delivery of the
product at hand. An array of informal trucking and transporting services are employed for reasons
of cost, reliability or security, as well as the absence of professional alternatives.
Even in the case of personal travel, only 55% of villages in India enjoy regular public transport,
which often consists of a bus or a mini-bus that will visit the village once or twice a day. In other
villages, ad hoc community transport must be organized by the community itself, often in the
form of a tractor trailer or other improvised transportation. In such cases, rural subjects rely on
their immediate social or business network and a plan is set in motion for collective travel to
another location or group congregation. For such a plan to be successful, the larger number of its
participants must be physically co-located. Alternatively of course, when rural subjects are using
a state or privately managed mode of public transport, they often go far out of their way to reach
a nodal point, a bus station or train station from where they may plan their onward train journey.
We believe that the pervasive presence of mobile phones in rural India could allow rural users to
enjoy more convenient and effective means of transport, which will also result in savings of time,
money, fuel and emissions.
91
92
A tiered and graded system of different kinds of public transportation, i.e., national, regional, commuter railway or
bus system, makes sense in the industrial era when end-users could not have real time, just-in-time, personalized
location-specific information about public transport facilities. Buses, trains and then airplanes needed to have
fixed schedules in order that a large number of travelers could be co-located at a station or port for scheduled joint
travel. Given mobile communications, there is no longer any reason for a traveler to conform to a bus schedule, if the
schedule of the bus can be modified in real time to suit the needs of the traveler.
There is now a number of new service opportunities whereby peer groups as well as subjects who are strangers
to one another may collaborate to achieve far greater efficiencies. User-centered regional transport innovations are
already being planned by the design consultancy Live|Work in England’s north-east, in and around Newcastle. Along
similar lines, there have been attempts to allow regular commuters to choose a seat partner online before traveling
by plane or train in the United States (www.airtroductions.com). Both of these approaches to travel planning are
relevant to us in India, on account of the extraordinary size of India’s population and the impending growth in the
transportation sector.
At present, only 1.36 % households in India own an automobile. On the other hand, 48% of all households possess
a bicycle. India’s Tata Group has famously promised to produce a car costing less than two thousand Euros by 2008.
Whether or not their plans come to maturity, many more families will be able to afford a car by the end of the decade
than today. Despite the fact that automobiles consume extraordinary amounts of money and space, and are highly
carbon-producing in their environmental impact, they are likely to be perceived as an essential investment for any
emerging middle class family. Strategies that would allow car sharing through mobile phone-based reservation
would ensure that even those who are not currently capable of owning a car might be able to enjoy part-ownership.
By creating systems of mobile reservation and car sharing in India, it is possible to ensure that the larger number of
families finds it more convenient to avoid actually owning an automobile.
Diverse forms of enhanced public transport services may therefore be designed using mobile platforms, while
more effective uses of personal transportation technologies must also be imagined to take advantage of mobile
technologies.
93
Micro-commerce
?
20
Sun
25
21
Fri
Mon
25
Fri
94
The practice of setting up ‘haats’ at specified locations on specified days of the week is an
ingenious and effective means for rural communities to enjoy wide access to material resources
required for everyday and domestic life. Despite the fact that it is not necessarily desirable to
replace ‘haats’ with centralized forms of distribution and retail, we have begun to see a rising
trend towards the creation of retail superstores in rural India.
We propose that the existing model of the ‘haat’ be extended and enabled through emerging
mobile technology. Some of the drawbacks of the ‘haat’ model, of course, are that decisions
must either be made on the day or must be deferred for the entire week; home deliveries are
not possible and so forth. In these ways, of course, the ‘haat’-based model may never be quite as
convenient as a store in the urban context. However, we can imagine a series of innovations that
might allow mobile-based ordering, payment, requests for remote delivery, all of which service
enhancements would supplement the primary sales model of the ‘haat’. To enable such services,
however, the inventory, accounting and planning systems of the micro-entrepreneur will have
to be similarly extended and enabled. Along these lines, we can imagine innovative, interactive
voice-response systems that take the place of spreadsheets and allow micro-entrepreneurs to
more effectively manage their stock as well as communicate their wares to their retail clientele
and also to order and pay their regional suppliers.
95
Financial Services
96
Micro-credit is that revolutionary mode of rural finance that relies on social connectedness (in
the form of peer pressure) rather than material collateral for guaranteeing loans. The mobile
phone, by contrast, is that revolutionary device that allows users to convert money into social
connectedness.
We have already described myriad ways in which mobile phones enable rural farmers, traders
and entrepreneurs to strengthen their social and business networks. We believe that mobile
phones can also serve as a means for enabling peer-to-peer financial transactions at lower risk
and lower friction than has hitherto been possible through pen-and-paper or even internet-PC
banking. In the initial stages, these new kinds of financial transactions on the mobile phone will
necessarily be linked to the mobile airtime balance of the retail subscriber, and will therefore
necessitate new partnerships between financial institutions and network service providers
to ensure cash-out. Airtime transfer experiments have already been extraordinarily successful
in countries like the Philippines and Uganda (Wishart 2006), and we may yet see a day when
mobile money comes to completely supplant physical paper money.
Governments and financial institutions are understandably wary of moving too quickly in
these directions for fear either of precipitating sudden crashes to the systems as a whole or
of cannibalizing existing models of financial service delivery. Small, simple experiments using
mobile enabled systems for para-banking and micro-finance institutions, however, would
appear to be a sensible and creative means through which to design new financial products
as well as the client-side user interface and server-side financial engines necessary to enable
financial transactions on mobile.
97
Healthcare Services
R
R
R
98
Healthcare institutions have found two efficient means for using telecommunications and information
technologies in their work: for superior coordination within the specializations and bureaucracy of the
system, and for superior communication with the end recipients of their care. The internet-PC is the
optimal platform for the first, and the mobile phone is emerging as the device of choice for the second
(Vodafone 2005). Here, however, we would like to emphasize the value of peer-to-peer networks or
circles of care, which can disseminate health-related information in the language and terms of the end
user more effectively than any other means.
According to the National Human Development Report of 2001, the single largest causes for child
mortality in India were the prevalence of toxic domestic fuels in the home, poor sanitation, unsafe
water and related modalities of infant care. Most of these causes could be substantially mitigated
through better outreach and training of the expectant mother. While rural healthcare institutions have a
theoretical, abstract and conceptual knowledge of these factors, as well as established practices for their
implementation within the routinized context of a Public Health Center (PHC), these healthful practices are
often poorly translated into the specific local lifestyles of those families who are most vulnerable.
This translation is the specific responsibility of India’s rural ‘anganwadi workers’, (assistant nurses or
midwives), who receive some training and recognition from the state, while also enjoying local support
from their client community. These anganwadi workers may be further enabled to communicate and
encourage appropriate techniques of childcare, as well as personal and family hygiene information may
be shared amongst members of a peer network through diverse forms of audio-blogging, conference
calling and non-real time audio messaging.
Another approach to more specialized forms of health-care is suggested by the model of ‘eye-care camps’
whereby a specialized institution may set up a temporary base in an area where such facilities are not
normally available. The Arvind Eye Hospital based in Tamil Nadu has worked in collaboration with local
internet kiosk operators in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu in order to make reservations for check-ups and
operations during a local eye-camp. Along similar lines we can imagine outreach services by government
and private sector hospitals focusing on communicable diseases and other chronic ailments, which
require specialized intervention that is usually unavailable at the local level. Mobile phones can be used
to make reservations, to change them, to learn about the location and time of subsequent camps and so
forth. In these ways, the entire model of healthcare may come to resemble, in some ways, a sort of ‘justin-time’ village ‘haat’.
99
Governance
FORM
FORM
100
FORM
It is a matter of some curiosity that the Government of India, which took the lead in
informationalizing its bureaucracy as early as the late 1980s under the leadership of Shri Rajiv
Gandhi, now finds that far more citizens are able to communicate and access data services
through mobile phones than through computers. Thus, the websites of major Government
of India departments at the center and state level are still being constructed, the number of
citizens who are likely to access these websites remains pitifully small, at least on the web. How
can citizen services now be delivered through mobile phones?
The accomplishment of government-to-citizen transactions on a mobile platform would
require considerable innovation both in terms of government functioning as well as in terms
of communications protocol and document storage capabilities of the storage platform itself.
A quick survey of e-governance schemes active in India and in other parts of the developing
world will reveal that almost all such internet or IT-enabled governance systems involve a
print-out as a proof and often a record of this transaction. All this cannot easily be accomplished
using mobile phones. In fact, it would appear that the greatest opportunity for mobile-based
citizen services has to do with making governmental information accessible and intelligible for
those Indians who cannot read and write and who cannot access any of the abundant printed
material generated by the State. One can imagine, therefore, remote voice access to public
databases and forms of service transactions based on these technologies. Serious questions
remain, however, about the privacy of citizen data and about the desirability of maintaining
citizen databases in the public domain for audio searching and possible mining.
101
Education
102
Around the world, parents and teachers have been concerned that putting mobile phones into the hands
of children might make them more vulnerable to predators, while also undermining the formal conduct
of classrooms. Until recently, it was erroneously believed that the heavy metal batteries used in mobile
phones posed a special danger to the developing brains of children. We believe, however, that over time
the benefits of mobile communications will prove to outweigh these drawbacks, and mobile computational
and communications devices, whether personally owned by a student or assigned as lab-equipment by the
school, will come to have an integral role in all child and adult educational processes.
In its prior work, CKS has explored a number of innovative-use cases/scenarios whereby rural governmental
schools in India and similar developing contexts, could use media-rich mobile devices to enhance and to
supplement in-class learning. Some of the scenarios explored include:
(i)
Using a camera phone to document one’s immediate environment and to thus create a local (ii)
Using the phone as a scientific calculator and ready reference repository of equations and formulae;
(iii)
Using the audio storage capability of the device to record lectures or to podcast lectures or to access
encyclopedia;
podcasted lectures;
(iv)
Using the device for conference calling between classrooms as a means of distance education;
(v)
Using the Bluetooth capabilities of the device for campus communications if the school remains (vi)
Using the data capabilities of the mobile phone to synch directly with a television or projector, (vii)
Encouraging students to create content and software on the mobile device itself;
(viii)
Teaching spelling, grammar and foreign and second languages through interactive games;
(ix)
Using the location-sensing capabilities of the device to promote child safety and security.
outside mobile coverage;
obviating the need for a PC;
The mobile platform may have a special role in affording access to education to those communities that
remain nomadic, semi-nomadic or displaced for reasons of natural disaster or political instability or crisis
by allowing learning activities to go on in the absence of other forms of physical infrastructure. Further, the
conference-calling, audio-blogging, and non-real time messaging capabilities of the mobile phone already
mentioned can allow students, teachers and other learners to build parallel lines of communication and
reinforcement of in-class instructions by creating audio study groups.
103
Infotainment
104
The category of infotainment is widely viewed as being co-terminous with the culture
industry, i.e., modes of point-to-multipoint copyright-protected creation and dissemination
of protected material. Content industries around the world, including Hollywood, the Hong
Kong film industry, the Hindi film industry in Mumbai and regional film centers in Chennai,
Hyderabad and Kolkota, have already found a number of innovative ways to use the emerging
media capabilities of mobile phones to reinforce the branding and marketing of diverse media
collaterals including ring tones, wallpapers, movie tickets and so on.
We believe that a responsible and developmental approach to emerging technologies should
seek to amplify and enable local modes of content and knowledge transmission. The existing
capabilities of value-added service platforms using voice, WAP, and other mechanisms, such
as on-device portals, have the potential to be reconfigured so that they enable end-users to
create and distribute content to small groups of their peers. These modes of peer-generated
and peer-shared content need not supplant the products and distribution networks of the
mainstream entertainment industry, but can complement them, affording an alternative
mechanism for end users to create, modify, and editorialize broadcast and published content.
105
Consequences
of this
study
106
It is our hope that the ethnographic findings presented in this
document, and the sociological and economic analyses that
follow upon them, will receive wide attention, consideration
and debate in diverse quarters. However we are especially
concerned to address three sectors: civil society, state and
inter-state policy makers and the mobile industry itself. We
direct our comments to these audiences in reverse order.
107
Consequences for the Mobile Industry
In this period of rapid expansion, the mobile industry has perhaps lacked the time and
the resources to completely understand the larger impact that it is already having on
society at large, especially on those societies that have hitherto lacked alternative forms of
communications or media. This report serves as a preliminary attempt to evaluate that impact
using ethnographic means. Several aspects of our research findings, however, now merit
further qualitative-cum-quantitative study in other world regions so as to definitively establish
the generally positive economic and developmental consequences of mobile phone adoption.
Having thus established the impact that its own business practices have on society, whether
through internal, external private sector, or sponsored academic research, the mobile industry
must both communicate this impact more widely and also take steps to act in response to
this new knowledge. Companies may choose to evaluate and report the social impact of their
economic activities to their shareholders, alongside its environmental impact, in the model of
a triple bottom-line reporting format, or seek to magnify and intensify this positive impact by
sponsoring charitable and non-profit voluntary activities that are linked to the companies’ core
businesses.
Mobile industry executives discussing rural connectivity
108
Through much of the 20th century, telecommunications companies were owned by various
state governments and their role in society was that of a public utility. The reason for their
existence was, first, to serve the needs of citizen users and, second, to generate profit – if at
all. Since the global telecom restructuring of the 1980s and 1990s, however, we have seen
the growth of extraordinarily powerful operator brands with lifestyle and designer values
associated with them. Whereas we insist that mobile networks remain profitable and continue
to build strong brands, it is also clear that a different approach will be necessary for catering
to the needs of the world’s next two billion mobile phone users. Both operators and handset
manufacturers will need to be perceived as trusted rural resources if they hope to compete
and succeed in these new markets. A reconceptualization of the role of a company’s corporate
social responsibilities and activities is essential here, for a trusted rural resource can only be one
whose corporate activities, social responsibility functions and brand values are tightly aligned
with one another.
For the moment, we see that technologies designed in the most urbane and metropolitan
regions of the world for utilitarian use in industrialized societies are being rapidly re-purposed,
re-branded and marketed to new rural adopters. In the absence of a more competitive option,
these utilitarian products have been widely and enthusiastically received. In the immediate
future, however, we foresee that there will be increased demands for products, services and
network capabilities that are specifically designed for rural use and whose qualitative, textural
and experiential attributes are localized just as much as their price points. To serve new rural
users the mobile industry must make concerted efforts to understand new users as well as
their lifestyles, their lived environments and the everyday challenges that they face. Global
players seeking to gain new markets in rural and partially industrialized environments must
educate their personnel about rural lifestyles and livelihoods, local social and communicative
patterns, and agrarian economics. Insights generated from such learning must inform the next
generation of mobile technology platforms, products, services and content.
109
Even as we encourage new partnerships between the mobile industry and state and civil
society organizations, all those active in the mobile industry will agree that there is a
need for closer partnerships amongst players within the industry, particularly equipment
manufacturers, mobile operators and handset manufacturers. It is only by working together
that these and other emerging arms of the industry, including, for example, solutions providers
and third party service providers, can actually innovate and deliver new services of the kind
described earlier in this report.
In some ways, the challenge is greater for the mobile platform than it was for the internetconnected PC. Whereas with the birth of the internet, it became relatively easy to build a
website and to thus communicate in a free and open way with the World Wide Web, the
mobile sector, by its very nature, is highly segmented into multiple component members of
the value chain. In order to use anything but the most basic forms of mobile service – voice
and sms – grassroots and developmental organizations continue to require special assistance
and enablement. At this stage highly specialized software and network protocol skills (not to
mention regulatory knowledge) are required to do anything innovative and inventive with
this platform. It remains a primary responsibility of the mobile industry as a whole to address
this fact and to create the platforms, standards, the developer kits, and even the component
units of code that would allow grassroots mobile innovation of the kind we have already seen
operating in the PC-internet paradigm.
110
Consequences for International and State Policy
In the past, national states have interacted with the mobile industry principally as regulators.
The case studies and arguments presented in this document should convince state level and
international policy makers that the mobile industry may be the most important vector for
rural development by the end of this decade. It is, therefore, imperative that states integrate
their telecom regulatory, tax administration, and rural development policies. States have a
vested interest in seeing that the mobile industry as a whole, and the mobile operators licensed
within their territorial boundaries in particular, create new service platforms that enable the
delivery of welfare services as well as peer-to-peer conduct of micro-commerce and related
activities. Therefore, they must incentivize the research, development, testing and rollout of
such services and related enabling technologies. It is obvious that such a complex and subtle
policy agenda will require the integration, coordination, fine-tuning and alignment of different
departments and ministries of government.
States may also have the new responsibility of establishing the benefits of mobile
communications, as well as any adverse consequences that this research has failed to
discover. These and similar findings must be used to more acutely guide the design of state
policy. A good case in point may be non-real time audio messaging technologies, which have
tremendous potential value in allowing non-literate users to communicate with each other,
but which are currently stymied on account of poor understanding of their developmental
potential.
111
Consequences for Civil Society
Civil society and non-governmental organizations have a critical role in mediating between
state and industry actors and grass roots communities. In the case of micro-finance, they have
served as a creative avant-garde that has recognized new potential markets and developed
new and innovative business models from which the corporate sector is still struggling to
learn. Therefore, we believe that civil-society organizations will play a key role in defining new
needs that the mobile industry is capable of fulfilling. Working with state agencies, NGOs may
also be capable of exploring and developing new delivery mechanisms for welfare and social
services in areas such as healthcare, education, and micro-enterprises. In order for civil society
organizations to pursue such an agenda, however, it will be necessary for them to engage
the mobile industry more effectively to empower themselves with critical technology tools to
allow them to build free and open-source software applications and to communicate the needs
of rural communities to their mobile partners.
Diverse members of the mobile industry stand to benefit by sharing their respective domains
of expertise with civil society and state policy makers and administrators. Conversely, the new
and emerging capabilities of the mobile sector and the opportunities they present in driving
development in the emerging economies of the world must be better understood by those
who have global development as their primary responsibility.
112
How to Do Things with Mobile Phones
Those seeking to be involved with the coming media revolutions that are bound to unfold
in emerging economies such as India would be advised to leave behind the expectation
that these regions shall merely come online or replicate industrial societies’ adoption and
enthusiasm for the web as it exists today. This will not merely be a web 3.0 or a mobile 2.0.
The world of mobile media in India by the end of this decade will be more richly immersive,
multiply-mediated and nuanced, through subtle forms of gesture, moving, growing, shifting
and changing at the rate of sociality itself.
The profound social and cultural impact that peer-created content might have in an
environment such as India can only be guessed. The quantity, quality and variety of such
peer-created content in formats including songs, poetry, short videos, community narratives,
morality plays and other forms of philosophical, theological, devotional, and religion-based
content will dwarf even that great recent revolution that was the World Wide Web.
The developmental promise of mobile phones, therefore, resides not merely in their ability to
afford communications, access to information, and the passive or inter-passive consumption
of media. Mobile phones are also a practical means for users to do things in their interactions
with systems, institutions, communities or other users, which afford them greater control over
the circumstances of their everyday life. In this simple fact resides a developmental imperative
that can guide grassroots organizations, civil society, policy makers, and technology
developers to increase access and to increase the practical usability and utility of mobile
technologies.
113
114
Case
Studies
115
Case Studies
In the following pages of this
chapter we will describe 16 case
studies selected from the field
interviews and investigations conducted in three regions of India.
The diagram alongside explains
the distribution of these subjects
according to income and degree of
urbanity. As is evident herein, we
selected no subjects with annual
incomes higher than $15,000 or
lower than $1500 (adjusted for
purchasing power parity). We also
studied no subjects living in
formal urban environments, but
only those living in informal or
slum settlements.
116
Purchasing Power Parity In U.S. Dollars
The distribution of case studies by income and location
City / Metro
Urban
Town
Village
Village
> 100K
Slums
20-100K
> 5K
< 5K
Above $ 15,600
68m
$ 11,700 - $ 15,600
75m
$ 7,800 - $ 11,700
166m
$ 4,000 - $ 7,800
415m
$ 1,500 - $ 4,000
176m
Below $ 1 a day
300m
197m
40m
85m
171m
638m
117
118
Watermelon Farmer
No Education
Single
5K Village
Badaun District, UP
“
I use land
reclaimed from the
river for watermelon
farming. If there is a
flood, we lose all our
crops. This makes it
difficult to repay credit
for that year.
“
Ahmed, 19
Ahmed does not own any
land. He uses land
reclaimed from the
river for farming
purposes and sends the
produce to the city
market. His farmland is on
the farther side of river. He
has been farming since he
was 12 years old.
119
Clockwise from bottom left:
Loading the hired vehicles to transport produce to city markets
Bullock carts used to transport watermelon across the river
Reclaimed land across the river used for growing watermelon
Unloading the bullock carts
BACKGROUND
Ahmed lives in a joint family that has 33 members and is the youngest of the seven
brothers in the family. Four of these brothers are already married; his father, two older
brothers and he look after the watermelon fields. They also grow some wheat, but only for
personal consumption. At one time, his father used to beg in order to provide for his family.
Ahmed gets up early in the morning and goes to the field after feeding the cattle. His
days are busier during the farming months, which account for half the year. Nevertheless,
Ahmed finds time to enjoy music on his radio, which he keeps at the farm.
Living as he does in a large joint family, Ahmed has a strong social network that adds to
his sense of comfort and security. He is also an ambitious man, who would like to improve
his family’s standard of living. Ahmed would like to move to and urban area where
opportunities to increase his income and avail of better education and health facilities.
Ahmed represents several million Indians who are limited by the lack of education. Even
though he possesses a mobile phone, Ahmed is dependent on others to help him through
the textual interface. He uses the phone only to make and receive calls or check his balance
as he has been taught to do by the dealer from whom he bought it.
120
DEVICES OWNED
WORK PRACTICE
Radio - 1 month
B/W TV - 1 year
The stakes are high for farming on reclaimed land near
Mobile Phone - 1
month
Monthly rental
INR 550/-
a river, because a slight flood could result in the loss
of the whole. The crop is cultivated for a period of six
months. It begins with the borrowing of money from
different traders in various cities to invest in seeds,
fertilizers, pesticides and the hiring of equipment for
ploughing. The interest on the credit is high on such
loans, because Ahmed cannot offer any collateral.
Ahmed’s family is guaranteed the sale of some part of
the produce to the lender, and may sell the rest in the
Ahmed’s Communication Map
open market.
Trader | Bareilly
Trader
| New Delhi
The main selling season falls in April and May. At this
time, the produce is carried on carts from the banks of
the river to land and then loaded onto trucks that will
transport the produce to the cities. The point of sale
or auction for the watermelon needs daily planning
Pesticides Vendor| Kadir Chauk
Fertlizer Vendor | Kakora
because the rates offered at these locations differ and
Transporter | Kadir Chauk
vary throughout the season.
Money Lender | Sundarayan
Trader
| Sahranpur
121
Liyakat’s Annual Expenses Model
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Ahmed has business relations with several
INR
a
b
c
START UP ASSETS
Captured Land
Savings
Cash and Seeds on Credit at 22%
EXPENSES
Fertilizer
Pesticide
Seeds
Ox-cart hire for ploughing
Business Travel to New Delhi
Business Travel to Bareilly
Business Travel to Saharanpur
Phone ( PCO)
Goods Transport
Personal Expenses
Total Seasonal Expenses
INCOME
Watermelon Sales (Saharanpur)
Watermelon Sales (Barielly)
Watermelon Sales (New Delhi)
Ad Hoc Labour Income
Total Seasonal Income
SEASONAL PROFIT
Total Seasonal Income
Total Seasonal Expenses
Interest Owed
Total Outgoings
Net Seasonal Profit or Loss
122
EURO
traders in three cities (Saharanpur, Badaun
and New Delhi). These business relationships
0
0.00
10,000 169.49
42,600 722.03
are very complex. The traders lend him money
at the beginning of the season to conduct his
agricultural business. In the sales season, he
transports the watermelons to these different
INR 6000
6,000
INR 2000
2,000
INR 0
0
INR 600 * 2 cattle * 3 days
3,600
INR 500 * 6 days
3,000
INR 200 * 10 days
2,000
INR 250 * 6 days
1,500
INR 150 * 2 mth + INR 80 * 4 mth + INR 50 * 6 mth 920
INR 23,100
23,100
INR 1,000 * 12 days
12,000
54,120
INR 3 * 5,000 Kg
INR 4 * 4,000 Kg
INR 6 * 6,000 Kg
INR 60 * 8 month * 10 days
101.69
33.90
0.00
61.02
50.85
33.90
25.42
15.59
391.53
203.39
917.29
15,000
16,000
36,000
4,800
71,800
254.24
271.19
610.17
81.36
1216.95
71,800
54,120
9,798
63,918
7,882
1216.95
917.29
166.07
1083.36
133.59
locations, 20 to 25 times a season.
There is frequent communication involved
during the farming season between Ahmed and
the traders on the status of crops and any new
expenses to be met. During the high season,
communication peaks with the exchange of
daily updates.
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart indicates that Ahmed sells about 15 tonnes of watermelon in a
season. He has a very high variation in the cost per unit. He gets almost
double the rate in Delhi compared to other city markets. Where to sell
his produce is a critical decision, as it is easier to travel to nearer markets
and Delhi is very far away. There are other risks involved around the
transportation of perishable goods across long distances. These risks and the
decisions he takes with regard to them substantially transform his business.
The mobile phone has altered his business in several ways. He leverages
different relationships with different traders, moneylenders or wholesale
purchasers to optimise sales in season. Through use of the mobile phone,
he (a) is able to optimise his already very high interest rate; . (b) saves
substantially on travel time by reducing the number of city trips to maintain
these relationships and (c) gains other kinds of incremental information
regarding traffic, which corrupt truckers to avoid, and other risk information
needed in the transport of time-sensitive, perishable commodities. Finally,
the information about rates helps him take informed decisions, get higher
produce rates and improve his remote business network co-ordination.
The mobile phone has enabled Ahmed to overcome the vulnerability
caused by a lack of timely information or investment opportunities
to draw optimal profits.
123
124
Sunil, 20
“
I work on our farm in
the morning and at the kiln in
the afternoon. We have a small
plot of land and the produce
is sufficient only for us and is
not for sale. We have recently
“
lives in a small, remote village, has had to face many
obstacles which he has
overcome by taking loans.
“
Brick Maker /
Farmer/
Part-time Laborer
High School
Single, 2K Village
Satara District,
Maharashtra
Sunil , a brickmaker who
taken a tractor on loan so have
to work on others’ farms in
the evening to be able to save
money to repay the loan. I
hardly have any free time.
125
Clockwise from bottom left:
Sunil’s house
Family members help in the brickmaking
Brick moulds with his father’s initials
Freshly made bricks left to dry
BACKGROUND
Sunil is primarily a brick maker but also works part-time as a laborer in other people’s farms.
Apart from this, he also farms an ancestral plot of land, the produce of which is enough only
for family consumption. He lives in a nuclear family. He is the only son of a family with six
daughters, all of whom are now married.
His father started the kiln 25 years ago in the plot adjoining their house, when they found
that they could no longer sustain themselves on their farm produce. Sunil had to abandon his
schooling in order to help his parents run the farm and the household. Now, the entire family
helps at the kiln and even his sisters join Sunil when they come home on visits.
Sunil divides his day between the family farm, the kiln and the other farms where he works
as a laborer. At a comparatively young age, Sunil is burdened with many responsibilities. In
addition to providing for his family, he has to repay the loan he took at a high rate of interest
to purchase a tractor.
In these circumstances, Sunil has almost no time for entertainment except for chatting with
friends and an occasional visit to the cinema. Living in a remote village, he also has limited
access to alternative employment options.
126
DEVICES OWNED
Landline - 3 years
WORK PRACTICE
Motorbike - 3 years
Tractor - 6 months
The brick-making season is from January to April. The work
cycle commences with arranging labor and transport for the
acquisition of different raw materials from distant locations to
the kiln. The raw materials for making bricks are mainly clay and
coal. In addition, huge amounts of sugarcane wastes are used as
fuel in kilns.
A limited amount of the materials is mixed in a particular
proportion and kneaded with the feet. The paste is then given
definite shape using moulds and left on the kiln for eight to ten
days to bake completely. The batches of bricks are then stacked
Sunil’s Communication Map
Officer| Vaduj
into clean piles, which are watered regularly to increase strength.
The bricks are left in these piles until the orders arrive, at which
Coal Depot | Vaduj
point they are transported to the customers’ sites.
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Customers | Nearby Villages
Sunil incurs substantial expenses in labor and the transportation
of clay from the riverbed to the kiln. At least 25 to 30 trips are
Farmers | Nearby Villages
required to collect the raw material and this involves paying
fees to the Government, which Sunil has to pay in person at an
office in Vaduj, a nearby town. The coal is procured from nearby
Daily Wage Labor | Gopuj
towns, the closest of which is 10 kms away and the sugarcane
waste is bought from distant sugar factories. The orders to
the sugar factories are placed on the phone. The factories take
charge of delivering the sugarcane waste to the kiln. Sunil’s
customer base is mainly in a 10 kms radius from his village. It is
Coal Depot| Karad
Sunil’s responsibility to deliver the bricks to his customers, which
he does using a tractor that he has purchased on loan. All the
Sugar Factory | Karad
transactions are in cash.
127
Sunil’s Annual Expenses Model
BUSINESS MODEL
INR
EURO
EXPENSES
a
Soil Transport
INR 1,000 * 25 rounds
25,000
423.73
Lime
INR 20,000
20,000
338.98
Travel
INR 200 * 16 weeks + INR 50 * 32 weeks
4,800
81.36
Labour
INR 60 * 120 days * 4 men
28,800
488.14
Coal
INR 5 * 10 tonnes
50,000
847.46
Maintenance
INR 2,000
2,000
33.90
Dry Sugarcane
INR 15,000
15,000
254.24
Water
INR 200 * 12 months
2,400
40.68
Joint Family Expenses
INR 2,500 * 12 months
30,000
508.47
178,000
3016.95
200,000
3389.83
10,800
183.05
210,800
3572.88
Total Annual Sales
210,800
3572.88
Total Annual Expenses
178,000
3016.95
32,800
555.93
Total Annual Expenses
INCOME
b
Sales
INR 2 * 25,000 units * 4 months
Labour
INR 60 * 1ppl * 180 days
Total Income
ANNUAL PROFIT
Net Annual Profit or Loss
128
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
This chart alongside indicates that Sunil pays back a substantial
amount of his income as installments on the loan taken. Even his
tight work schedule indicates his endeavor to earn more. It is clear
that he needs to optimize his income, limit expenditure and have a
shorter return on his investment cycles.
Use of a mobile phone could transform his business and routine.
Firstly, his extensive traveling to multiple locations in search of work
and the cost of such traveling could be curbed (a); secondly, he
would be able to get higher sales volume through new customer
referrals and do remote business networking (b). It would also
enable him to order raw materials from another location, make more
informed decisions on procurement and provide a better delivery
service. This saving on time would allow him more room for leisure
and to look for other job options. It would also provide his family the
security of being able to get in touch with him at all times when he is
away from home.
129
130
Farmer
Primary School
Single
12K Town
Satara District,
Maharashtra
“
I invest the profits I
earn in my friends’ businesses. I know if I help
them now, they will
help me when I’m in
need.
“
Ramesh, 25
“
Ramesh is a traditional
farmer in a rural area who
has excellent connectedness
with the traders he depends
on to sell his crops.
131
Clockwise from bottom left:
Ramesh’s house
Entertainment
Female relatives sewing quilts
The shrine in the house
BACKGROUND
Ramesh is a farmer who cultivates onions and peas. He started farming at the
completion of his education five years ago. He is a well-traveled person who lived in
the city briefly, when his village was hit by a drought. During this time, he worked at a
jewelry shop in Chattisgarh (an adjacent state) for two years. He gave up his job as the
high cost of living in the city prevented his saving much money.
Ramesh now lives in a nuclear family with his parents and a younger brother who is still
studying. His entire family, with the exception his brother, helps out with the farming.
He has close friends, most of whom work in Vaduj (the closest town). Ramesh often
accompanies his friends on their errands to nearby places.
Ramesh does not have a fixed schedule. He often has appointments with his friends, and
so he has to choose between working on the farm or going to visit his friends in Vaduj.
132
DEVICES OWNED
TV - 5 years
He tries to educate himself on improved farming
Radio - 5 years
techniques. He does this by attending occasional seminars
organized in the village by fertilizer and seed vendors and
Mobile Phone - 6 months
by interacting with fellow farmers in evening assemblies
Monthly Rental
near the temple.
INR 500/-
Ramesh likes living the rural life and being self-employed.
His brief stint in the city has not induced him to exchange
his wide social network with its reliable – if casual
– financial opportunities, for the more costly and stressful
urban lifestyle
WORK PRACTICE
Ramesh has 2.2 hectares of land scattered over five
locations, in different directions from his home. Farmers
Ramesh’s Communication Map
Friends/Businessmen | Wakeshwar
in the region depend mainly on the monsoon for water.
For credit, they go to different cooperatives and banks in
the region and persuade them to invest in farming. The
Local Friends working in Vaduj
credit is limited and is offered against the farmers’ land as
security. The interest rates are high and repayment of debts
is unpredictable due to the vagaries of the monsoon, the
failure of which often results in droughts.
Farmers | Wakeshwar
The crops grown are mainly onion and different kinds of
cereals. Typically, there are two crops in a year. After the
harvest, the farmers choose between stocking or selling
the crop immediately. This decision depends on current
market rates and the perishability of the crops. The traders
themselves come to the village to negotiate the sale price
of the crops.
Seeds, Fertilizer, Pesticides Vendor | Vaduj
Trader | Vaduj
133
Annual Expenses Model
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
"53).%33-/$%,
A
).2
134
Ramesh maintains business relations with his
friends in Vaduj. He has invested his savings in
their businesses. He never charges any interest or
%80%.3%3
-ANUAL,ABOR&ARMING
2S
HECTARES
MEN
$AYS
-ACHINE,ABOUR
2S
HECTARES
3EEDS
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invested in their business. In turn, he is not charged
&ERTILIZER-ANURE
2S
HECTARES
any interest.
0ESTICIDE
2S
HECTARES
4RAVELING
2S
DAYS
WEEKS
He remains in touch with his friends and assists
#LOTHING
2S
them in their work. This ensures the security of
%LECTRICITY
2S
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his investment and strengthens their financial
%NTERTAINMENT
2S
MONTHS
interdependence in times of need. He asks those
0HONE0#/
2S
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of his friends who are from his village and work
-EDICAL
2S
MONTHS
in Vaduj to make procurements of seeds, fertilizer
&-#'
2S
MONTHS
%DUCATION
2S
and pesticides on his behalf and bring these back
0ERSONAL%XPENSES
2S
WEEKS
(OME-AINTENANCE
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-ONTHS
4OTAL!NNUAL%XPENSES
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%52/
).#/-%
%ARNINGSFROMSELLINGPRODUCE
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demands a share of their profit. But when in need,
he is allowed to withdraw more than the money
with them. At times, he even asks them to make
pending payments on his behalf to vendors in
Vaduj. He stocks onions and cereals and sells them
when the rates are favorable. He calls his friends to
find out the latest rates of crops in the city and uses
this information to compare the rates offered by
2S
TONNES
3%!3/.!,02/&)4
4OTAL!NNUAL3ALES
4OTAL!NNUAL%XPENSES
.ET3EASONAL0ROFITOR,OSS
the traders coming to the village.
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
Ramesh’s case shows the possibilities that have been explored using a
phone. The proximity to town and business relations with friends have been
harnessed to the optimum.
The mobile phone has helped Ramesh to improve his circumstances in many
ways. It has helped him to look to other sources for easy credit and make
secured investments. Phone conversations allow him to save on unnecessary
travel to the town for petty purchases. The phone allows him to stay up-todate with current market rates. It has enabled him to make procurements
from remote locations without having to travel (a). Therefore, he has more
time at his disposal, which he uses to educate himself by interacting with
older farmers and by attending occasional seminars. It has helped him to
remain connected to his friends even when he is in the field and still conduct
his operations smoothly (b).
The phone has given Ramesh new opportunities to organize his savings,
relations and work, all without interfering with his primary activity: farming.
135
136
Sugarcane Farmer /
Jaggery Maker /
No Education
Married, 4 Children
5K Village
Badaun District, U.P.
“
I make jaggery out
of the sugarcane I grow and
sell it to the traders in town.
Once they have secured a
price for the jaggery they
have it picked up from my
farm. I am able to clear
my annual debts with the
money I earn in these
two harvest months.
“
Vijay, 23
““
As a sugarcane farmer
and processor Vijay has
to interact with traders,
middlemen and
fellow farmers in order to
optimize production and
maximize profits.
137
Clockwise from bottom left:
Sugarcane processor
Dried sugarcane
Pits
Extractor
BACKGROUND
Vijay has been farming since his childhood. He grows sugarcane and processes it into jaggery.
His sugar processing business is eight years old. Before that, he worked exclusively as a farmer.
Though not formally educated, Vijay prefers being independent in all his dealings and taking
his own decisions. He has worked out a business model in which there is a steady income
from renting out his tractor and from the jaggery-making unit. This income tides him over
even when his crops fail.
Vijay lives in a joint family and is the youngest of four brothers. There is a total of twenty
members in the family. Since most of the older members of his family have passed away, Vijay
and his bothers manage the household and share all its resources, including the motorcycle
and the phone. All of his brothers are farmers.
Vijay has three sons and a daughter. He leaves for the farm early in the morning and, during
the peak sowing and harvesting seasons, he often does not return home for lunch. In the
summer, when the days are very hot, Vijay stays home in the afternoons. The evening is
mainly spent with his family and most especially with his children. Vijay’s social network is
largely limited to his family.
138
DEVICES OWNED
Radio - 6 years
WORK PRACTICE
Tractor - 1 year
Bike - 10 years
Vijay owns eight acres of land jointly with his brothers. The
processing machine is located on the farm. Sugarcane takes
Mobile Phone - 2 years
one entire year to grow. After harvesting, the sugarcane
Monthly Rental
is crushed to make juice by using rollers driven by a diesel
INR 250/-
engine. Then the juice is boiled, treated and dried in three
connected vessels. The dried lumps are then packed in gunny
bags while the crushed sugarcane is dried and used either as
fodder for cattle or as fuel to boil the juice. The work requires
two to three laborers throughout this period.
The processing season lasts for two months. The jaggery
produced is generally sold at the end of every week. The
tractor they own is sometimes offered on rent. The hiring
charges for an uneven plot of land are fixed at double the rate
Vijay’s Communication Map
for an even plot land.
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Trader | Bareilly
Trader | Badaun
Vijay’s business demands a regular cycle of credit. This is
obtained from his regular customers as cash at the onset of
season, from diesel vendors as fuel at regular intervals during
the two months, and occasionally from fellow villagers as raw
sugarcane to meet the shortage.
He sells the produce to traders in Badaun and Bareilly. He keeps
track of the market rates through fellow farmers who have
Daily Wage Labor |Sundarayan
recently visited the city. He meets the laborers every day and
Relatives |Nearby Villages
gives them instructions for the two-month period when the
jaggery is processed. He has to coordinate with the tractor
driver, who switches from one field to another as directed.
Farmers| Sundarayan
Brothers | Sundarayan
139
Annual Expenses Model
BUSINESS MODEL
EXPENSES
Manual Labor Farming
a
b
INR 45 * 3.25 hectare * 5 men * 90 Days
EURO
65,812
1,290.43
Machine Labour
INR 7,950 * 3.25 hectares
25,837
506.61
Seeds
INR 6,500 * 3.25 hectare
21,125
414.22
Fertilizer + Manure
INR 6,500 * 3.25 hectares
21,125
414.22
Pesticide
INR 2,000 * 3.25 hectares
6,500
127.45
Travelling
INR 100 * 52 weeks
5,200
101.96
Labor Cost
INR 45 * 3 men * 60 days
8,100
158.82
Power
INR 60 * 3 lit * INR 25
4,500
88.24
Maintenance
INR 1,000
1,000
19.61
Additives
INR/tonne 160 * 3.25 hectares * 50 tonnes
13,000
254.90
Joint Family Expenses
INR 5,000 * 12 months
60,000
1,176.47
232,199
4,552.92
260000
5,098.04
260,000
5,098.04
260,000
232,199
27,801
5,098.04
4,552.92Đ
545.12Đ
Total Annual Expenses
INCOME
Sales Price of Jaggery
c
INR
Total Income
INR 16 * 3.25 hectares * 5,000 Kg
SEASONAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
Total Annual Expenses
Net Annual Profit or Loss
140
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
This chart indicates the ways in which the use of a mobile phone has contributed
to Vijay’s business practices. His lack of education and the remoteness of the village
from urban centers are barriers in Vijay’s attempts to improve his family’s social and
economic status, but he has begun to cross these barriers through the use of the
mobile phone. Though he cannot understand the textual interfaces, he identifies
buttons and functions through self-created associations.
The mobile phone has empowered Vijay to conduct geographically distal activities
smoothly. He is able to leverage his relations with regular customers to obtain credit
at better interest rates (a), and save on travel (b). The mobile phone allows Vijay to
make more informed decisions and get higher prices for his produce.
141
142
Potato chip maker
No Education
Married, 4 Children
5K Village
Badaun District, U.P.
“
I have a fixed
business network,
people from whom
I buy potatoes and
people to whom
I sell chips.
“
Salim, 23
““
Despite being illiterate
and living in a remote
village, Salim has
managed to make a living
out of manufacturing
potato chips that are
eventually sold in large
towns.
143
Clockwise from bottom left:
Drying the chips
Work area
Processing the chips
Washing potatoes
BACKGROUND
Salim prepares bulk potato slices to be sold to chips manufacturers. He has been in this
business for the last four years. Earlier he used to help his father in his trade in herbs.
Salim lives in a joint family that has eight members. He has four children and is
the primary wage earner. His social network comprises of friends, relatives and
acquaintances. Most of these people live near by and so he stays in touch by personally
visits them. In his free time he is fond of going on cross-country cycle rides with his
friends.
From a conservative Muslim family, Salim is a religious and devout Muslim who visits the
mosque regularly. He also places great store by the opinions of his family and community
and would hesitate to take any decisions contrary to the general trend of opinion in his
community.
Salim has a fixed routine. He leaves the village early early on days when any stock
purchase or delivery is to be done. Otherwise he stays at home and manages the
processing of chips. Though not formally educated, Salim has been able to successfully
manage various aspects of his business.
144
DEVICES OWNED
TV - 5 years
Radio - 8 years
Cooler - 8 years
WORK PRACTICE
Mobile Phone - 1 month
Salim owns a small processing unit for preparing potato
Monthly Rental
chips. The process occurs in three stages. The potatoes are
INR 150/-
peeled and sliced, then soaked into a solution for crispness
and finally dried in an open field. The peeling and slicing
are done by a machine. No flavors are added. The whole
process consumes huge volumes of water.
The prepared chips are then delivered to the vendor. The
transportation of potatoes to the village and the chips to
the city is arranged by contacting transporters in the city.
Chips are stocked; the potatoes are procured only after
Salim’s Communication Map
orders have been accepted. The vendees buy the chips in
Chips Seller | Badaun
bulk and sell them to large manufacturers, who further
process the chips.
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Raw Materials Wholesalers | Ujhani
Salim buys the potatoes and the additives required from
different vendors in Ujhani, which is the nearest town. This
is done either by personally visiting them or placing orders
on the phone twice or thrice a week.
Relatives | Sikri Jungle
He supplies chips to several regular vendees in Badaun (the
central district). Calls are made and received several times
Shopkeepers | Sikri Jungle
a week to seek confirmations. Payments are collected on a
monthly basis.
The transportation of potatoes to the village and the chips
to the city is arranged by making calls to fixed transporters
in the city at least three times a week.
Relatives | Qadir Chowk
145
Annual Expenses Model
BUSINESS MODEL
a
b
INR
EXPENSES
Potatoes
INR/tonne 8,000 * 44 tonnes
352,000
5,966.10
Traveling
INR 100 * 4 days * 48 weeks
19,200
325.42
Labor Cost
INR 60 * 3 men * 4 days * 42 week
31,248
529.63
48,000
813.56
Power
INR 25 * 10 ltrs * 4 days * 48 weeks
Maintenance
INR 4,000
Additives
INR/tonne 1,500 * 44 tonnes
Phone (PCO)
INR 100 * 12 months
1,200
20.34
Water
INR 500 * 12 months
6,000
101.69
Joint Family Expenses
INR 4,000 * 12 months
Total Annual Expenses
c
146
EURO
INCOME
Sales
Total Income
INR/tonne 14,000 * 44 tonnes
4,000
67.80
66,000
1,118.64
48,000
813.56
575,648
9,756.75
616,000 10,440.68
616,000 10,440.68
ANNUAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
616,000 10,440.68
Total Annual Expenses
Net Annual Profit or Loss
575,648
40,352
9,756.75
683.93
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart indicates the different stages in the business cycle and the time-sensitive
nature of the business. The ability to effectively communicate over distances plays a
pivotal role in increasing Salim’s business.
It enables him to place orders from different locations and thus get lower purchase
rates for potatoes (a). The manufacturers, the bulk vendees, Salim, the potato sellers,
and the transporter form nodes in a complex communication network. Negotiating
and making decisions effectively with so many people requires a quick method of
communication. Earlier, lapses in communication and untimely deliveries, used to
result in the cancellation of orders. Such situations are now avoided by using the
phone to take more informed decisions. Having a phone has fundamentally improved
Salim’s business. The mobile phone allows Salim to co-ordinate between these
locations the three points – Salim’s village, Ujhani (the nearest town) and Badaun (the
district) – around which his work revolves. He, therefore, saves time on travel (b). In
addition to the advantages listed above, he is now able to deliver more, get more bulk
orders (c) and make secured travel to business related sites better.
147
148
Homemaker
No Education
Married, 5 Children
5K Village
Badaun District, U.P.
“
I visited Delhi when
my husband was working
there as a sweeper.
Now we have come back
to the village to continue
with the family
occupation of farming.
“
Rani, 30
““
Rani lives in a village and
spends her time looking
after her family and
working on her husband’s
farm. Her sources of
entertainment are limited
to chatting with her
neighbours and the
seasonal festivals and fairs.
149
Clockwise from bottom left:
With her children
Straw from their fields stored in the courtyard
View of Rani’s hut
New granary store being built in the courtyard
BACKGROUND
Rani takes care of her house and children and also works on her husband’s and other
villagers’ farms. She and her husband worked in Delhi for a couple of years, before
coming back to the village to resume farming. Even now, the produce from their land is
not sufficient to meet their needs for the entire year.
Rani lives in a nuclear family with five children. She plans to send all but the oldest
daughter to school. Rani is representative of the poor rural Indian homemaker who
works hard to look after her family and helps her husband in making ends meet. Rani
belongs to a Dalit or oppressed caste/community, as defined by the Indian Constitution
‘Schedule’ of backward castes.
Rani’s family lives in a mud house that they built themselves. The house consists of two
blocks along an open courtyard. One block is used as a kitchen and living area while the
other is divided into two units: one unit is used as sleeping quarters and the other acts
as a storage room for grains. The open courtyard gives ample space in which to store the
harvested sheaves of grain.
150
DEVICES OWNED
None
WORK PRACTICE
A large part of her day is spent shuttling between the farm
and the house. At the farm, the tasks range from planting
seeds, applying fertilizer and watering plants to scything
wild grass and crops. At home, Rani looks after the children,
prepares breakfast for them, cooks and carries lunch to her
husband at the farm. She also sweeps the house twice a
day and feeds the cattle.
She occasionally works on other people’s farms as a wage
laborer. The rest of the day is spent interacting with the
neighbors or doing non-specific chores. Visits outside the
Rani’s Communication Map
village are rare. They occur only when Rani’s husband has
the time to accompany her.
Relatives | Sundarayan
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
The only people who live far away and with whom Rani
communicates regularly are her parents. She speaks to
Neighbours
them twice a month, calling them from the village PCO.
She sometimes receives calls from them on her neighbor’s
mobile phone. Most of her relatives live in the village
and Rani meets them once a week. The women in the
neighbourhood are her close companions. With them she
has daily interactions.
Visits to the nearest town are also rare, and occur mostly to
seek medical aid or advice at the Government hospital.
Parents | Distant Village
151
Annual Expenses Model
BUSINESS MODEL
INR
EXPENSES
Farming Expenses
INR 3,000
3,000
50.85
Food
INR 100 * 12 months
1,200
20.34
Fuel
INR 100 * 12 months
1,200
20.34
Clothing
INR 2,000
2,000
33.90
Electricity
0
0
0.00
Phone (PCO)
INR 35 * 3 times * 12 months
1,260
21.36
Medical
INR 1,000
2,000
33.90
FMCG
INR 100 * 12 months
1,200
20.34
Traveling
INR 60 * 52 weeks
3,120
52.88
Education
0
Total Annual Expenses
152
EURO
INCOME
Earnings from selling produce
INR 8 * 6,000 Kg
Earnings as labour
INR 50 * 2 ppl * 4 months * 30 days
0
0.00
14,980
253.90
4,800
81.36
12,000
203.39
Total Income
16,800
284.75
SEASONAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
16,800
284.75
Total Annual Expenses
14,980
253.90
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
This chart reveals the degree of Rani’s impoverishment. She does not
lack for time; it is the lack of opportunity that handicaps her.
153
154
Hairdressers
Primary School
Married, 2 Children
5K Village
Satara District,
Maharashtra
“
We are continuing our
““
Running a combined saloon
family trade. We have no
and beauty parlour in a small
land. We have to depend
village exposes unique prob-
entirely on our customers
lems that this couple has man-
for our livelihood.
aged to overcome
“
Smeeta, 30 and Ravi, 35
through skillful management
of time and limited resources.
155
Clockwise from top left:
View of saloon and house
Smeeta in the beauty parlour
Ravi attending to a customer
With their children in the living room
BACKGROUND
Ravi started his hairdressing saloon in the village 13 years ago. Before this, he worked as a
repairman in the village, but abandoned the work because customers constantly demanded
credit.
He learnt his hairdressing skills from his father who practiced on the footpaths of Mumbai.
Ravi lived with his father in Mumbai and worked there as a laborer in a factory. Eventually, he
had to return to his village to join his mother as she was unable to manage alone. Ravi has
worked hard to support his family; due to the ill health of his parents, he has had to spend a
lot on medical care.
As a hairdresser, Ravi has to be careful in his social interactions with others in the village.
For one thing, a hairdresser is considered to belong to a lower caste, requiring certain
modes of subordinate behavior. For another, Ravi does not own any land in the village and
is thus dependent on various traders for everything from food to housing. Ravi takes care to
maintain good relations with everyone.
156
DEVICES OWNED
Smeeta used to be a homemaker during the early years of their marriage.
Color TV - 2 years
When her children became old enough to go to school, she started the
Mixer/Grinder - 1.5
beauty parlor with her husband’s encouragement. The beauty parlor is
years
three years old. In the nearby town of Vaduj, Smeeta completed a course of
Landline - 3 months
training to become a beautician.
In the eleven years that they have been married, Ravi and Smeeta have
had two children. Ravi’s business is doing well whereas his wife’s beauty
parlor has few customers. Most of the women in the village are hesitant
about spending on themselves in beauty parlors. Smeeta is aware of this
and is clear that any income from her end of the business is only meant to
supplement and not equal Ravi’s. She would like to spend more time with
friends and neighbors, but Ravi discourages any activity that is wasteful of
their time.
WORK PRACTICE
The front end of the house is used as the men’s saloon. The women’s parlor
is inside. Ravi restocks the required cosmetics at the end of three months by
Ravi. He buys them from a specific shop in the city. Ravi sometimes gets an
apprentice to help, but the apprentices stay only long enough to learn the
tricks of the trade and then go on to start their own saloon. Smeeta works
Ravi and Smeeta’s Communication Map
Cosmetics Wholesaler | Satara
Weekly Market | Vaduj
alone.
Scissor Sharpener | Satara
The saloon has a regular pool of customers. Services are offered against cash
only, especially to new customers. The regular customers are sometimes
allowed credit. There are a few who exchange food commodities for
services. All the credits are recorded in a book.
The maximum number of customers come on Sundays. Time slots are
Clients | Kuroli
reserved for officers on Sunday. No credit is allowed on this day.
Neighbor
There is an association of saloon owners in the village. They meet to fix a
common rate for their services and have designated Saturdays and Mondays
Trade Group| Kuroli
as the days on which all the saloons are to be closed, since getting a haircut
on these days is not permissible according to local customs.
157
Annual Expenses Model
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Ravi visits a specific shop in Satara (50 kms away) once
in three months to buy materials for his saloon and
BUSINESS MODEL
INR
EURO
his wife’s parlor. To sharpen his scissors and to buy
household items, he has to visit Vaduj twice a month.
EXPENSES
Cosmetics
INR 21,250
21,250
360.17
While Ravi is away on his errands, Smeeta is alone at
FMCG
INR 95 * 365 days + INR 310 * 12 months
29,375
497.88
Fuel
INR 310 * 12 months
3,720
63.05
home.
2,000
33.90
680
11.53
There is no other such facility in adjacent villages.
Clothing
INR 2,000
Electricity
INR 170 * 4 times a year
Phone
INR 200 * 12 months
1,260
21.36
Medical
INR 1,000
2,000
33.90
Travelling
INR 120 * 6 months
720
12.20
Education
INR 2,000 * 2 months
4,000
67.80
Entertainment
INR 60 * 12 months
360
6.10
Water
INR 80 * 12 months
1,080
18.31
66,445 1,126.19
Total Annual Expenses
At the insistence of his regular customers, mainly the
officers who come to his saloon, Ravi has bought
a phone to make appointments. The phone is kept
inside the house so that customers will not ask to use
it, since to refuse them is to earn their displeasure.
The saloon owners’ association meets once every
month. The credit accounts are settled every quarter.
Vaishali’s parlor receives occasional customers from
the neighborhood.
Earning from Parlor
INR 20 * 10 ppl * 52 weeks
Earnings on week days from Saloon
INR 10 * 20 ppl * 4 days * 52 weeks
41,600
705.08
Earnings on Sundays from Saloon
INR 10 * 50 ppl * 52 weeks
26,000
440.68
176.27
Total Income
78,000 1,322.03
Total Annual Sales
78,000 1,322.03
66,445 1,126.19
11,555 195.85
Total Annual Expenses
Net Seasonal Profit or Loss
158
10,400
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
In Ravi’s case, the landline is an important tool to secure an edge over
competitors by providing enhanced services to the customer. It allows Ravi
to book appointments for customers and adjust priorities on the basis of
the transaction and the influence a customer wields. This enables Ravi to
optimize his time. He can also get in touch with his family whenever he
wants when he is away from home.
Use of a mobile phone can be considered for skill enhancements and to
build a denser social connectivity among the villagers. Societal image
enhancements, micro-credit options, education on childcare and medical
advice on the phone are other aspects which offer promising potential.
159
160
Middleman
Primary School
Married
12K Town
Badaun District, U.P.
“
I don’t write the
names of my customers
in my phone book, only
their locations. This is very
confidential and strategic
information.
“
Suresh, 40
““
Suresh makes his living as a
daily wages laborer packing
and selling straw. He has a
substantial business network
that he uses to maximize his
profits, from selling his
produce.
161
Clockwise from bottom left:
Pocket diary; only location of contacts,
no names
Hired daily wage workers making rope
Unsorted bundles of straw
Sorted bundles near the weighing scale
WORK PRACTICE
Suresh has a regular customer base in distant cities and there is a constant demand
for straw throughout the year. The villagers from nearby villages bring straw to sell
to him. The amount of straw bought from a farmer can range from a small trolley
to a large truck. The prices may vary depending on the quality and demand, but the
straw is always bought against cash. The purchased straw is then sorted and packed
into clean bundles of varying quality.
The sales prices are negotiated with different buyers before a deal is struck.
Accordingly, transport is arranged and the bundles are dispatched to their
destinations. Four to five laborers are hired on a contract basis to sort the straw
and load it. Depending on relations with the client, sometimes only a part of the
payment is made in cash and the rest is left as credit, which can be leveraged in
different ways by Suresh.
162
DEVICES OWNED
Color TV - 2 years
Mixer/Grinder - 1.5
years
Landline - 3 months
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Suresh receives and asks for orders of straw from distant customers on his
mobile phone several times a week. Some of his customers are in other
states. Suresh’s brother, who travels for two weeks every month to visit
customers, does the collections. The two of them work as a team. His
brother calls him twice a week to give updates on the collection and credit
status, so that Suresh can decide on the quantity to be sold to a particular
customer.
Farmers from the village come to the storehouse to sell Suresh straw. A few
of them call him to know the rates. The interaction with laborers and daily
wage workers depends on the work at hand, but happens at least once
every other day. Suresh calls the transporters in Badaun (70 kms away) two
to three times a week to arrange transportation for the straw.
Suresh’s diary has only location names against the phone numbers. He
never writes down the name of the person. It is confidential information
Suresh’s Communication Map
that, if misplaced, could jeopardize his business.
Vendees | U.P.
Vendees
| New Delhi
Transporter | Badaun
Farmers| Nearby Vilages
Labor Contractor | Usehat
Daily Wage Labor | Usehat
Vendees| Rajashtan
163
Annual Expenses Model
BUSINESS MODEL
INR EURO
START UP ASSETS
Knowledge Base of Contacts and Needs
Savings
0
0.00
20,000 338.98
contactable by sellers
more stock
EXPENSES
Purchase of Stock-in-Trade
Haat Stall Rentals
Labor Costs
Local Travel for Coordination
Brother's Travel Costs
Joint Family Expenses
Total Annual Expenses
INCOME
Average Annual Sales
Total Seasonal Income
SEASONAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
Total Annual Expenses
Net Seasonal Profit or Loss
500x16x12x.8
16x4x30x12
8x60x12
100x15x12
8,000x12
500x16x12x2.5
76,800 1301.69
0
0.00
23,040 390.51
5,760 97.63
18,000 305.08
96,000 1627.12
219,600 3722.03
240,000 4067.80
240,000 4067.80
travel coordination
travel coordination
price leverage
higher sales volume
better debt recovery
240,000 4067.80
219,600 3722.03
20,400 345.76
new customer referrals
increased biz network
increased leisure time
164
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart illustrates that Suresh has substantial annual sales and, in fact, has
some kind of personal income and cumulative profit at the end of the year.
The phone has transformed all phases of his business. He can now be more
easily contacted by his clients. The arranging of transportation for goods has
become easier (b), and the exchange of updates between him and his brother
has become faster (c). Even his sellers can now contact him and this helps him
hold his excess stock to meet untimely demands (a). The volume of sales has
increased because of new customer referrals. The business network with his
brother and his customers has improved debt recovery and helped to leverage
prices of straw (d). These advantages translate into increased leisure time, and
with greater daily efficiency.
165
166
Contractor
Primary School
Married, 2 Children
12K Town
Satara District,
Maharashtra
“
To survive in this business,
we have to
keep ourselves updated
about events
and new products in the
market all the time.
“
Baburao, 45
““
Working as a contractor in
a small town, Baburao gets
his clients through his
comprehensive social
network. He keeps up-todate with the latest trends
in equipment by visiting
shops in larger towns.
167
Clockwise from bottom left:
His wife with their children in the kitchen
Various equipment, tent sheets, light strips
stored in the living room
A tent installed for an event
Baburao’s house outside with a board
advertising services
BACKGROUND
Baburao has been working as a tent contractor for the last seven years. He learnt the trade by
helping his friend, who was in the same business. In the off-season, he works with his younger
brother on the farm that the family owns.
Earlier, Baburao worked on the family farm along with his father and younger brother.
However, frequent droughts in the region leading to low produce output caused him to give up
farming and start work as a tent contractor.
Baburao lives in a joint family that has eight members. He has two children, both of whom
go to school. His younger brother has a one-year old child. The whole family lives in a tworoom house consisting of the living room and kitchen, and the women in the family are
homemakers. A semi-covered backyard is used for heating water and washing and drying
clothes.
His younger brother continues to farm full-time since their father’s demise. The food grains and
vegetables grown on the farm are enough only for family consumption and are not for sale.
168
DEVICES OWNED
Color TV - 1 year
Mixer - 7 years
Landline - 1.5 years
Baburao is a cautious entrepreneur who does not take undue risks in his business.
Mobile Phone - 4
He consults with several people before taking any business decisions or making
months
any purchases. He prefers to continue his business at a comfortable scale that is
Monthly Rental
manageable by his family and does not depend on laborers or sub-contractors.
INR 175
WORK PRACTICE
The equipment is stored in the living room and the bamboo poles used in
erecting the tents are kept in the front courtyard. The equipment offered are: tent
cloth (plain and printed fabric), a stock of bamboo poles, three music systems,
loudspeakers, three sets of decks, decorative lights, and a generator. Baburao
Baburao’s Communication Map
Electrical Shops | Pune
hires the tube lights and additional light fixtures from electrical stores. Usually, the
customer makes his or her own arrangements for music CDs or cassettes.
Local Labor| Nearby Villages
The peak season is the wedding season - the months of May and June - and during
Clients| Vaduj/Nearby Villages
the Ganesh festival in August. The rest of the year brings only smaller contracts
for housewarming parties or other family gatherings. He usually takes his son or
younger brother along to set up the tent. For functions on a grander scale, or for
Social Network| Vaduj/Nearby Villages
those functions that continue for more than one day, wage helpers are hired.
The contractors in the village have an association. They have an understanding
amongst themselves not to interfere with each other’s networks. They rely on
each other for back-ups of equipment in case of emergencies, as when there
Electrical Shops | Vaduj
is an equipment failure during a function. The wedding arrangement business
Transporter | Vaduj
works mainly through referrals. wedding card printers, matchmakers, caterers
and cloth sellers stay in touch with each other to keep themselves up-to-date with
Electrical Repairman | Vaduj
forthcoming events.
Bamboo Wholesalers | Sangli
Equipment Shops| Kolhapur
Tent Cloth Suppliers | Ichalkaranji
169
Annual Expenses Model
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Baburao works in Vaduj and in nearby villages in the
district within a 60 kms range. He gets work entirely
through his social network. He is in regular touch with the
astrologers who determine marriage dates and he studies
"53).%33-/$%,
).2
%52/
4RANSPORTINGTENTMATERIALBACKANDFORTH
2S
DAYS
4RAVELINGTOCOLLECTFORGOTTENADDITIONALITEMS
2S
TIMES
4RAVELANDPHONECALLSTOENQUIREABOUTNEWPRODUCTS
2S
-AINTAINENCECOSTSFORELECTRICALEQUIPMENT
2S
,IGHTING"ULBS3TRIPS
2S
0HONEBUSINESSRELATEDUSAGE
2S
MONTHS
$AILYWAGEHELPERS
2S
PPL
*OINT&AMILY%XPENSES
2S
4OTAL!NNUAL%XPENSES
B
He refers to the local newspaper for upcoming celebrations
and then contacts influential individuals who could
%80%.3%3
A
the calendar for ‘good’ dates when most events take place.
arrange for him to get the contract for these events. He also
frequently contacts matchmakers, wedding card printers
and caterers. For efficient coordination, the frequency of
communication with the customer increases closer to
the date of the event. When daily labor is required, local
people are contacted. He contacts the transporters through
his mobile phone and visits the electrical stores to hire
light fixtures a few hours before leaving for the venue to
set up for the event. He contacts the electrical equipment
repairmen in Vaduj for minor repairs and maintenance
).#/-%
#ONTRACTING#HARGES
2S
DAYS
as and when needed. He contacts the equipment shop
%QUIPMENT(IRE
2S
DAYS
in Kolhapur once every three months to update himself
on new equipment available in the market. He also asks
4OTAL)NCOME
his peer network to enquire and update him about new
170
!..5!,02/&)4
4OTAL!NNUAL)NCOME
or city. The repair of sophisticated devices is possible only
4OTAL!NNUAL%XPENSES
.ET!NNUAL0ROFITOR,OSS
in Pune and he makes a trip to that city before the peak
products in the market every time they visit a bigger town
season begins.
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The preceding chart indicates that sizeable portions of Baburao’s
recurring expenses are on account of business travels to coordinate
events.
The entire business depends on timely knowledge of upcoming
events; use of the phone has multiplied Baburao’s business in many
ways. Earlier he used to lose out on business if he was not at home to
receive calls on the landline, especially for events decided on the spur
of the moment. Now, clients can contact him at any time on his mobile.
Timely information of new customer referrals has amounted to a higher
number of orders per year (b) and fewer vacant days. Because of the
mobile phone, unnecessary trips made due to oversight in the transport
of equipment, is avoided. (a). Now he can call home from any location
and arrange for the equipment to be delivered.
171
172
Bamboo Artifacts
Seller
Middle School
Married
15K Town
Satara District,
Maharashtra
“
Bamboo work is
“
Sunita sells bamboo
the traditional occupation of
artifacts in the market of her
my caste. I learnt it from my
small town and has adapted
mother-in-law who was the
her business process to
only woman who worked in
make changes in her life.
this business earlier. My
She is also a member of a
husband was never
self-help group that helps
“
Sunita, 45
interested so I decided to
women take easy loans and
continue the work.
augment their savings.
173
Clockwise from bottom left:
On weekdays Sunita sets up shop beside a
public phone booth near her house
Bamboo objects stored in the kitchen
Bamboo stored in the house courtyard
Negotiating with customers in the weekly
market
BACKGROUND
Sunita is a bamboo crafts vendor and repairperson. She began working with bamboo soon after
her marriage and inherited these skills at her craft from her family, which has been engaged in
this activity for generations. She has now stopped making craft products out of bamboo, since
she is now 35 years old, but she now buys them from village craftsmen. She sub-contracts work to
craftspeople from neighboring villages; shrewd about purchases and stocks, Sunita has managed to
create a business model for herself that allows her to manage her time well and be independent.
Sunita lives in a nuclear family with her husband in a two-room house. They do not have any
children but have a pet dog to which they are very attached. Her husband is a plumber and is always
on the move on different plumbing jobs. A PCO owner in the neighborhood is like a son to her and
he keeps an eye on the shop when Sunita needs to go home to attend to housework.
Sunita has been part of a Self-Help Group (SHG) for the last three years. There are 11 women in each
group and each contributes Rs. 50/- per month. They meet once a month to collect the money.
Based on her savings, each member gets a sari from the bank every year. Each member can take
loans as needed. Sunita says that the SHGs have helped her be disciplined about her savings. She
also found that she was able to socialize with the other members and occasionally even travel
to exhibitions hosted by them. Each of the SHGs is given the name of a famous female icon, for
example, Jhansi ki Rani or Jijamata.
174
DEVICES OWNED
B/W TV - 6 years
Radio - 4 years
WORK PRACTICE
Sunita sets up shop near her house throughout the week and
at a specific location in the weekly market in her town every
Saturday. The weekly market attracts the maximum number
of customers. Though sale on other days is low, the shop
stays open every day to build a regular clientele. The marriage
season, from April to June each year, draws the highest sales,
as the demand for baskets is high. These baskets are used to
Sunita’s Communication Map
exchange gifts between families of those getting married.
Parents | Pune
During the rest of the year, there is only a moderate sale of
products for regular household use.
Sunita’s business practices have changed slightly over the
years. Previously, the bamboo was collected from nearby
Relatives | Distant Towns
woods and the craft products were self-made. Now, the
Bamboo Object Makers | Nearby Villages
bamboo is bought from vendors in the city to be sold as a
whole or as cut pieces. The goods are mostly procured from
craftswomen in small villages, who sell them to her at the
weekly markets. At that time, they also take the next orders
from her. She has arranged with them not to sell their goods to
anyone else in the market. The town craftswomen have made
an association disallowing any outsider from putting up a stall
Customers| Vaduj/Nearby Villages
at the weekly markets.
SHG Members | Vaduj
Relatives | Vaduj
Phone Booth Operator| Neighbor
Bamboo Wholesalers| Kolhapur
Transporter| Kolhapur
175
Annual Expenses Model
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Sunita has strong business and social relations in the
town and neighboring villages. She has a pool of regular
customers who visit her once in two months. She gives
BUSINESS MODEL
INR
EURO
orders and receives delivery of the craft products every
week from the village craftsmen when they come to town
to attend weekly markets. She personally goes to purchase
EXPENSES
Bamboo Goods
INR 26000
26,000
440.68
bamboo from Kolhapur once in three months. She gets the
FMCG
INR 1600 * 12 months
19,200
325.42
bamboo transported from Kolhapur in a hired vehicle, the
1,500
25.42
charges for which she shares with other craftswomen from
720
12.20
villages.
Clothing
INR 1500
Electricity
INR 60 * 12 months
Phone
INR 15 * 6 days * 52 weeks
4,680
79.32
Medical
INR 2000
2,000
33.90
Her husband is contactable on his mobile phone. She
Traveling
INR 60 * 12 months
720
12.20
uses the PCO booth opposite her shop to call him several
Money given at SHG
INR 50 * 11 months
550
9.32
Water
INR 50 * 12 months
600
10.17
times a day to enquire about his return and to inform him
55,970
948.64
Total Annual Expenses
also acts as her contact point for all her relatives and her
husband when she is home or at the stall. She prefers being
INCOME
Return from SHGs
INR 600
Market Day Income
600
10.17
INR 10 * 40 units * 1 day * 52 weeks
20,800
352.54
Week day Income
INR 10 * 10 Units * 6 days * 52 weeks
31,200
528.81
Husband's Income
INR 2000 * 12 months
24,000
406.78
Total Income
if any visitors are awaiting his return. The phone booth
76600 1298.31
contacted by others’ or receiving guests at her house rather
than initiating contact or visiting others houses as she does
not like to leave her house unattended for a long time.
She interacts with the PCO owner every day and with fellow
bamboo craft vendors every week. She visits the SHG group
176
every month and goes to the bank once a week.
ANNUAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
76,600 1298.31
Total Annual Expenses
Net Seasonal Profit or Loss
55,970
20,630
948.64
349.66
177
178
Transporter
Primary School
Married
50K Town
Satara District,
Maharashtra
“
My mobile phone has
increased my flexibility
and free time. I can get
work at any time on the
phone, so I do not have
to wait in line at the
transport stand the
whole day.
“
Amol, 27
“
As a driver of a public
conveyance, Amol
interacts with people
from all walks of life
and has an
ever-expanding
network.
179
Clockwise from bottom left:
View of the truck
Accounts book
Where Amol parks his truck
In the truck
BACKGROUND
Amol is a transporter. He has a three -wheeler auto and has been in the transport business for
the last eight years. He bought the auto partly on loan and partly from his own savings. Amol
learnt driving at a driving school. Earlier, he worked for a friend’s bakery for a daily wage of Rs.
300 and fuel expenses. The physical stress involved in the work made Amol give it up.
Amol lives in a nuclear family. The family members include his parents, wife, a young niece, and
a sister who is married. He is the primary wage earner in the family, though his wife has recently
started giving tuitions. His father-in-law also stays nearby. It is here that his wife conducts tuition
classes. The auto stand is a ten-minute walk from his house. Amol’s family is relatively well off
and he has the additional support of his wife’s income.
Amol is a cheerful, social young man who gives equal importance to work and leisure. He is
fond of cricket and he plays the game every morning with his neighbors and friends. He spends
most of the day at the auto stand, coming home only for lunch. These days, so that he can return
home at a reasonable time in the evening, he does not carry goods to distant places. He likes
listening to music and watching movies and cricket matches. At times, he even skips work to
watch a match during the afternoon. He spends most of his free time with his friends and every
two weeks, he goes to the movies with them.
180
DEVICES OWNED
TV - 10 years
Cable - 4 years
VCD Player - 3 years
Mobile Phone - 6 months
Monthly Rental
WORK PRACTICE
INR 350/-
The charge for short distances is 5 INR per km but varies for longer
distances or when the load to be carried is heavy. The rates are
negotiable.
Approximate charges:
Distance: 10 km; Load: 700 to 800 kg – 100 INR
Distance: 10 km; Load: 400 to 500 kg – 90 INR
There are broadly three types of customers: the regular, the
seasonal and the occasional. The regular customers hire Amol’s
services throughout the year, while the seasonal also hire regularly.
They hire during a fixed period of time every year. The regulars
Amol’s Communication Map
make a weekly payment on Saturdays. A record of distances
traveled is maintained in a notebook. The seasonal and occasional
customers pay on the spot.
During the monsoon, Amol has fewer customers. But on festivals
days, like on Ganesh Chaturthi, or on weekly market days, many
Occasional Customers | Local/Nearby Villages
Permanent Customers | Phaltan
vendors hire his auto.
Fellow Transporters | Phaltan
Fruit Trader (Customer) | Phaltan
Friends | Phaltan
Relatives | Phaltan
Petrol Pump | Phaltan
Mechanic | Phaltan
181
Annual Expenses Model
"53).%33-/$%,
A
).2
%80%.3%3
&OOD
2S
MONTHS
&UEL
2S
DAYS
WEEKS
LITRES
#LOTHING
2S
%LECTRICITY
2S
MONTHS
0HONE0#/
2S
MONTHS
-EDICAL
2S
MONTHS
$ETERGENT
2S
MONTHS
4RAVELING
2S
WEEKS
%DUCATION
2S
0ERSONAL%XPENSES
2S
WEEKS
182
%NTERTAINMENT
2S
MONTHS
7ATER
2S
MONTHS
4OTAL!NNUAL%XPENSES
B
%52/
).#/-%
%ARNINGS
4OTAL)NCOME
2S
DAYS
WEEK
+M
!..5!,02/&)4
4OTAL!NNUAL3ALES
4OTAL!NNUAL%XPENSES
.ET3EASONAL0ROFITOR,OSS
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart shows the surge in the number of pick-ups Amol is able to
make in a day. After quitting his job at the bakery, it was difficult for
Amol to gain new customers, until he got himself a mobile.
The phone has elevated his business in a number of ways. The
perpetual connectivity with customers provides him more work
and he is able to hold on to regulars because they can stay in touch
with him. No longer having to drive aimlessly looking for customers
contributes to saving fuel and time (a). When he has a transport job,
he is able to be in touch with both the loading and delivery ends of
the transaction and thus saves time. He gives his phone number to
all customers, and this has brought him new customer referrals and
higher earnings (b). Being connected also allows him more leisure
(c) while having no adverse impact on his income.
The phone has empowered him as he always reachable.
183
184
Blacksmith
Primary School
Married, 2 Children
12K Town
Satara District,
Maharashtra
“
Our business is
entirely dependant
upon farmers. If they
stop coming to us,
we would be out
of business.
“
Vilas, 35
Vilas is carrying on the
traditional family occupation as a
blacksmith in a small
town. He belongs to
a blacksmiths’ trade
group and depends on
long time contacts for
materials.
185
Clockwise from bottom left:
Store room in the workshop
Client’s name marked on the wheel and other
cart units
View of Vilas’s workshop
Vilas’s one room house is one of many family
units built on ancestral land
BACKGROUND
Vilas has been working as a blacksmith for the past 20 years, ever since he left school. His
family has been in the trade for generations. Earlier, as blacksmiths, they did a wider range
of jobs, but over time they have restricted themselves only to cart-making and repair work.
The workshop stands on a plot of ancestral land along the roadside, with the rows of houses
for all family units behind it.
Vilas lives in a joint family with 22 members and has two children who go to school. All the
female members of the family stay at home while the men work in the workshop through
the day. His older brother farms on a small plot of land and the younger one goes to the
nearby villages to repair carts. The produce is enough only for family consumption.
The repair business has not been doing well for the last few years. The customer base has
shrunk because more farmers prefer to use a tractor. Others in the trade have shifted to
other businesses. Vilas also wants to shift to a new trade or find some other kind of work,
because the present business does not provide enough for the family to live on comfortably.
He would prefer an occupation that demands less manual labour and pays more, but he does
not have the capital to start an enterprise.
186
DEVICES OWNED
TV - 6 years
VCD Player - 1 year
He is aware of the loan schemes initiated by the government and has
approached banks and credit societies several times, offering to put up his
ancestral land as collateral. Vilas has requested them often to come and value the
land, but according to him, the officials have neglected his offer thus far. He feels
that the decision makers favor members of their own social network and feels
he has no way to get the credit he needs to start another business.
Vilas is a traditional man who is a firm believer in family values and traditions.
He goes to the temple each morning, meets his distant relatives during family
occasions or festivals and enjoys going to movies with his friends or male family
members.
WORK PRACTICE
. The business has a small, fixed customer base of low-income farmers. These
farmerscant repair have returned to using carts because hiring tractors in a
drought-prone region did not offer any advantage. The farmers come to the
Vilas’s Communication Map
workshop for repairs only when they have other business in town, like buying
Farmers | Nearby Villages
fertilizer or pesticide, or when they come selling crops. They typically leave the
wheel at the workshop in the morning and pick it up before they leave for their
village at the end of the day. However, people who remain at the workshop to
monitor the repairs are given priority.
Steel Depot| Phaltan
The payment is made immediately after the repairs are done. When a farmer
wants a new wheel or cart made, he gives the order with a 50% advance and
a date is agreed upon for when the work will be completed. The raw materials
Middleman| Phaltan
Saw Mill | Phaltan
(wood, steel, hardware and cow dung for fuel) are bought from fixed shops
in the town. The local saw mill cuts the planks to different sizes and these are
Harware Store | Phaltan
Trade Group Members | Phaltan
transported to the workshop on a hired vehicle. The neighboring welding shop
also helps out where necessary.
Welder | Neighbor
Fuel (cow dung) Seller | Phaltan
187
Annual Expenses Model
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Vilas leverages his old business relations with
raw material suppliers for credit but some of
them now only transact in cash. The wood is
bought through a middleman on credit. The
BUSINESS MODEL
INR
EURO
hardware shop, saw mill and welding shop
also allow credit. But the cow dung seller and
EXPENSES
Wood Planks
INR 80 * 300 piece
24,000
406.78
Milling
INR 10 * 300 peice
3,000
50.85
Transportation
INR 50 * 10 rounds
4,800
81.36
Steel
INR 100 * 150 strips
15,000
254.24
Wielding
INR 5 * 150 spots
750
12.71
Cow dung
INR 20 * 150 times
3,000
50.85
Hardware
INR 2000
2,000
33.90
Phone
INR 60 * 12 months
720
12.20
Joint Family Expenses
INR 4000 * 12 months
48,000
813.56
Total Annual Expenses
188
101,270 1716.44
INCOME
Cart making
INR 2000 * 2 ppl * 12 months
48000
813.56
Cart wheel making
INR 500 * 2ppl * 52 weeks
52000
881.36
Cart repairing
INR 20 * 5ppl * 52 weeks
5,200
88.14
Total Income
105,200 1783.05
ANNUAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
105,200 1783.05
Total Annual Expenses
Net Annual Profit or Loss
101,270 1716.44
3,930
66.61
steel depot deal only in cash. He has to visit
these places in person to get the work done.
He receives customers on all days. The only
contact point between them and him is the
workshop. His younger brother is in charge of
trivial repairs and visiting customers in their
villages for minor work.
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart shows Vilas’s limited profit. Despite a substantial customer base
and old relations with suppliers, he does not have enough margin at the
end.
The phone holds the potential to transform his business in several ways.
By contacting farmers on the mobile, he can take appointments and update
them when the repair work is done. He can coordinate with his brother
by informing him of locals who might want urgent repairs done. Vilas
can move around, scouting for new customers while remaining in touch
with those who are at his shop. More business can put him in a position to
demand larger advances from farmers; he can also get raw materials for a
lower price. This will improve his margin and can add to his savings. It can
even bring him other kinds of repair work. He can also avail of micro-finance
options if available through the mobile platform.
The phone can prove to be a vital key to improving his profits.
189
190
Footwear seller
High School
Single
46K Town
Satara District,
Maharashtra
“
I put up my shop in
six different weekly bazaars
(markets) in six different
places within a 60 km range
from my hometown. I carry
all the goods in my threewheeler and even rent space
in my vehicle to three
other fellow peddlers.
“
Mahesh, 23
As a footwear-seller who
lives in a small town in
western India, Mahesh has
had to overcome a lot of
obstacles that hinder his ability to procure his wares from
far-off destinations while still
maintaining his place in the
various markets which he
visits during the week.
191
Clockwise from bottom left:
Mahesh’s shop on the roadside at a weekly
market
Negotiating with customers
Winding up his shop in the evening
Dismantling the roofing
BACKGROUND
Mahesh is a footwear peddler. He has been working independently for the last two years.
Before starting his own business, he worked as an apprentice for two years in a footwear
shop. He has a mini-truck in which he transports his goods to five different weekly markets
each week.
Mahesh lives in a joint family. His two older brothers stay in bigger cities, while the younger
one is still studying. His father does poultry farming and agriculture. As most of the men
in the family earn their own living, Mahesh does not feel the pressure of being the only
member who would have to support his entire family.
However, Mahesh is an ambitious man and has strategized his assets well. He hires out space
on his mini-truck to other vendors and this brings him an income in addition to that which
he gets from the sale of footwear. Mahesh leaves home early in the morning and reaches
the town where the weekly market is by 9.30 a.m. Here he sets up his shop, at which he sits
through the day. In the evening, it takes him half an hour to wind up the shop, and he is back
home by 9.30 pm.
192
DEVICES OWNED
T.V. - 8 years
VCD player - 1 year
Fridge - 1 year
Tape - 3 years
WORK PRACTICE
Mobile Phone - 2 years
Mahesh is the only person in his village working in footwear. He sets
Monthly Rental
up his shop in market places that are not more than 60 kms from his
INR 350/-
hometown of Vitta. He has a fixed schedule for each day of the week
wherein he sets up shop in a different village each day, based on where
the weekly market is being held. He sets up shop in his hometown on
Mondays and on Tuesdays he takes time off to do his weekly planning
for trips to procure new merchandise. He has to pay a daily rental at
these market places in order to set up his shop. He rents out space on
his own mini-truck to three other vendors from his hometown who also
regularly put up a shop at the various market places.
He gets footwear from three widely separated cities. The footwear that
is factory-produced he sources from Mumbai, whereas the handcrafted
ones come from Kolhapur. His business practice has definitely changed
since he has had access to better communication facilities. Where earlier
Mahesh’s Communication Map
Wholesalers | Mumbai
he would have to go to the manufacturers and take a chance on their
having merchandise, he can now call ahead and ensure the items are
Vaduj (Saturday)
available when he visits them. The footwear is bought and sold against
cash, not credit.
Pusesawali (Thursday)
Karjan (Wednesday)
Wholesalers | Karad
Kodra (Friday)
Vitta (Monday)
Wholesalers | Kolhapur
Dhalgaon (Sunday)
193
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Annual Expenses Model
Mahesh’s communication network consists
wholly of his suppliers who are wholesalers
in cities like Mumbai and towns like
Karad and Kohlapur. He is in touch with
them by phone, but also has regular
face-to-face meetings when he needs
new merchandise. He travels to different
BUSINESS MODEL
a
INR
EURO
INR 30 * 6 days * 50 week * 5 units
Haat Stall Rentals
INR 10 * 6 days * 50 week
3,000
50.85
Travel Costs
INR 62,500
62,500
1059.32
Business Travel
INR 24,000
24,000
406.78
Phone
INR 120 * 12 months
1,440
24.41
Personal Expenses
INR 2000 * 12 months
45,000
762.71
24,000
406.78
159,940
2710.85
135,000
2288.14
INCOME
194
of the week and comes into direct contact
with his customers.
EXPENSES
Purchase of Stock-in-Trade
Total Annual Expenses
b
marketplaces in different towns each day
Average Annual Sales
INR 90 * 6 days * 50 week * 5 unit
Taxi Service to Others
INR 70 * 3 ppl * 5 days * 50 week
52,500
889.83
Total Seasonal Income
187,500
3177.97
ANNUAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
187,500
3177.97
Total Annual Expenses
Net Seasonal Profit or Loss
159,940
27,560
2710.85
467.12
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart shows that Mahesh spends a substantial amount of his
income on traveling and he does not buy footwear on credit,
so as to get better prices.
The mobile phone has radically transformed his business in several
ways. He is now able to make procurements on the phone and is
even able to inform the wholesalers to keep things ready before his
arrival. This has saved him his travel expenses and time (a). He is now
contactable and frequently receives calls for updates on stock from
different vendors. This further helps him not to lose out on purchasing
a particular variety of footwear. Being able to keep timely stock has
multiplied his income. He is now able to make more secured travels
and be in touch with his family if it gets late while returning. Getting
the right variety to sell, at the right time, has increased his sales (b).
The phone has provided him more flexibility in conducting his
business.
195
196
Dairy Farmer/
Pickle Maker/
Micro-finance Agent
High School
Married, 3 Children
50K Town
Chitradurga District,
Karnataka
“
I have been in this
town for over 25 years
and started off selling
milk from home before
diversifying into other
businesses.
“
Savita, 42
“
Savita has diversified
her business interests
from just running a dairy
to selling home food
products as well as
participating in a
micro-finance group.
197
Clockwise from bottom left:
View of the house’s compound from which
Savita sells milk every morning
In her living room with a neighbour who
helps her prepare the pickles
Cowshed for her cows
Savita’s kitchen
BACKGROUND
Savita runs a dairy farm, a domestic pickle-making and home-food products unit and a
micro-finance group. She started the dairy business seven years ago, before diversifying
into the other smaller businesses.
She lives in a nuclear family and has two children, both of whom go to school. Two of her
nieces stay with her as they are studying in the same town. Her husband works as a cashier
in a wine shop and is very supportive of her entrepreneurship.
Savita’s brother assists her in looking after the dairy farm, and her children help with the
packing and selling of home-food products. In addition to the sale of milk, Savita occupies
herself with housework in the mornings and evenings, and reserves the afternoons for
other businesses.
Savita is a smart and level-headed entrepreneur who has converted her social network into
her business network thus generating work and income for all the people involved. In this
process, she has gained their respect and admiration. She likes making full use of the time
at hand.
198
DEVICES OWNED
Hi-Fi Music System - 4
years
Color TV - 6 years
WORK PRACTICE
VCD Player - 4 years
The dairy farm is 6 kms away from her house and has ten high-yielding cows.
Refrigerator - 5 years
It has a staff of two. The milk is transported in big cans, using a hired auto
Mixer/ grinder - 4 years
rickshaw, which does six trips to and from the dairy farm every day.
Assembled PC – 4 months
The pickle-making activity is conducted from home. The raw material for
Mobile Phone - 5 months
making the pickle is bought from shops in the local market as and when
Monthly Rental
required. She sells all food-products from home. The neighbors, who are
INR 500/-
involved in the pickle-making, are assigned tasks and are paid on a per-kilogram
basis.
There are 20 members in the micro-finance group, all of whom are chosen very
judiciously. A comprehensive record of each transaction is made in a notebook.
Each member is also given a notebook so that the preceding transactions can
be tallied as and when required.
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Savita’s Communication Map
Shopkeepers | Chellakere
Savita’s social network consists mostly of her neighbors and regular clients,
apart from the micro-finance group members. She has regular customers who
contact her every month to place orders. She has a good understanding with
Clients | Chellakere
Milk Deliverer | Chellakere
the women in the neighborhood and contacts them two or three times a week
to find out their availability and to take accounts of the previously allotted
Relatives | Chellakere
work.
She often calls her brother to exchange updates on the productivity and
Neighbours
quantity of milk sold daily. She interacts with the hired driver several times a
day and keeps in touch with her relatives mostly through phone calls, though
she meets them two or three times a year, mostly during festivals and family
Brother | Chellakere
events. She does not travel much outside her town.
Dairy Farm Labour | Chellakere
199
Annual Expenses Model
BUSINESS MODEL
a
INR
START UP ASSETS
Cost of cows 10 * 20,000
INR 20,000 * 10 cattle
Personal Investment
INR 70,000
Loan taken at 20 % annual Interest
INR 1,50,000
EXPENSES
Feeding
Traveling
200,000
3389.83
70,000
1186.44
150,000
2542.37
INR 20 * 10 cattle * 365 days
73,000
1237.29
INR 50 * 300 days
15,000
254.24
Transportation
INR 2500 * 12 month + INR 100 * 365 days
66,500
1127.12
Labour (cattle rearing)
INR 2000 * 2 ppl * 12 months
48,000
813.56
Maintenance
INR 5,000
Pickle Ingredients
INR 12 * 100 Kg * 250 days
Labour (pickle)
INR 2 * 100 kg * 250 days
200
5,000
84.75
300,000
5084.75
50,000
847.46
61.02
Electricity
INR 300 * 12 months
3,600
Phone (LandLine)
INR 200 * 12
2,400
40.68
Household Expenses
INR 8000 * 12 months
96,000
1627.12
659,500
11177.97
7627.12
Total Annual Expenses
b
EURO
INCOME
Sales of milk
INR 12 * 15 lit * 10 cattle * 250 days
450000
Sales of pickle
INR 16 * 100 Kg * 250 days
400,000
6779.66
850,000
14406.78
Income
850,000
14406.78
Expenses
659,500
11177.97
Early Interest
Net Annual Profit or Loss
30,000
190,500
508.47
3228.81
Total Income
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart shows that are Savita’s entire activities take place
within the town and around her home. She has a high turnover
and the duration of return on investment is short.
Use of the phone has helped Savita’s business grow in multiple
ways. She has saved on travel spending (a). Contactable on the
phone, she is able to receive orders all the time and this has
further earned her new customer referrals, contributing to higher
sales volume (b). She is now able to coordinate better with her
brother, staff and neighbors. The phone brought her image
benefits and she is looked upon as more reliable and dynamic by
her helpers in neighborhood and the micro-finance members.
The phone has provided her with increased leisure time, but
her enthusiasm has encouraged her to diversify in other food
products as well.
The mobile phone has boosted her entrepreneurial activities
significantly.
201
202
Vendor
Uneducated
Married, 4 Children
Slum
Bangalore,
Karnataka
“
We don’t have a place
of our own. I help my
husband in his business of
bangle selling so we can
earn and save enough to
build a house .
“
Sushila, 35
A slum-dweller whose
lifestyle reflects the
transient state of such
lives, Sushila has to make
the most of limited means
and resources in a big city.
203
Clockwise from bottom left:
In the common living space with her
neighbours
View of the cart from which they sell bangles
Sweeping the common area
Bangles displayed in a room in the hut
BACKGROUND
Sushila is a homemaker who assists her husband in his work as a bangle-seller. She moved
with her husband from Kuppam to Bangalore about 15 years ago. They left because frequent
droughts made farming impossible.
She has four children and shares a hut with two other families. The other two families are
relatives: a brother-in-law and a niece. The hut belongs to the niece.
The slum they live in has not yet been legalised and so saving money to be able to buy
another holding in a different slum is a priority. Having a permanent address will help her
family to obtain the citizen ration card. A ration card will enable them to get food and fuel at
subsidised rates from the fair price shop. Sushila wants to provide a good education for her
children.
204
DEVICES OWNED
None
WORK PRACTICE
Their hut is made of mud and the roof is thatched and covered by
plastic sheets and old water-proofing cloth. They do not have any
electronic devices at home and hardly ever go to watch a movie or
entertain themselves in any way.
The morning is spent in preparing food. Thereafter, Sushila
accompanies her husband when he goes to nearby places to sell
bangles. She returns home at lunch time and stays home for the
rest of the day; her husband returns in the evening. Since there is no
electricity, she needs to cook dinner before it gets dark.
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Sushila is on friendly terms with the other two families living in the
Sushila’s Communication Map
Parents | Kuppam
hut. They exchange household items and help each other in their
day-to-day activities. But each family maintains a separate kitchen.
Most of her relatives live in the same slum. She meets them regularly.
The only people she makes occasional long-distance calls to are her
parents in Kuppam.
Customers | Bangalore
Relatives | Bangalore
205
Annual Expenses Model
BUSINESS MODEL
a
INR
EXPENSES
FMCG
INR 2,650 * 12 months
31,800
538.98
Fuel
INR 5 * 10 Kg * 52 weeks
2,600
44.07
Clothing
INR 2,000
2,000
33.90
Phone (PCO)
INR 30 * 52 weeks
1,560
26.44
Medical
INR 2,000
2,000
33.90
Electricity
INR 0
Traveling
INR 15 * 6 days * 52 weeks
Education
INR 2,000 * 2 children
Total Annual Expenses
INCOME
Earnings
206
EURO
INR 180 * 52 week * 6 days
0
0.00
4,680
79.32
4,000
67.80
48,640
824.41
56160
951.86
Total Income
56160
951.86
ANNUAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
56,160
951.86
Total Annual Expenses
Net Seasonal Profit or Loss
48,640
7,520
824.41
127.46
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
A mobile phone could be a starting point in solving several of
these connected issues. It can be used as a legal reference to
identity. This identification can be used to obtain a ration card
and thus avail susidised food grains and fuel. Presently, their
food expenses account for most of their monthly income (a). Any
savings they make will help Sushila to buy space for a new home.
Having a legally owned space that is will allow for spending on
electrification of the home and they could then afford to continue
to work during the evenings as well. This is likely to help Sushila
become a full-time earning member of the family. The phone
could educate her on childcare, teach new skills and be used for
edutainment.
207
208
“
I do any work
which earns me a
hundred rupees
a day.
“
Balloon seller
Primary School
Married, 2 Children
Slum
Bangalore,
Karnataka
“
“
John, 27
John lives in a big city
slum and while he is
essentially a balloon
seller, he also doubles as a
handyman and part-time
accountant.
209
Clockwise from bottom left:
Inside John’s hut
Covered ‘jhanda’, balloon staff kept outside
His mobile number written on the roof of the
hut for his wife’s reference
Helping neighbours with their micro-finance
accounts
BACKGROUND
John has been working as a balloon seller for the past 15 years. He travels to fairs in and
around Bangalore. During the off-season, he works as a repairman and as a part-time
accountant.
John lives in joint family with 12 members. He is the main wage earner. He has two children.
John’s father, who lives in their hometown Kolar, where they have rented out a part of their
house, comes to meet him once every six months.
John has been living in a slum for the last one and a half years in a hut that belongs to his
mother-in-law. He worked as a balloon seller when he lived in Kolar, but shifted to Bangalore
because he was not able to make ends meet there. John has never visited his hometown
after shifting to the city.
On the days when John is not selling balloons, he returns early. On Tuesdays, he works as an
accountant at the “sanga mithra”, a micro-finance group that was formed by 11 women in
the slum. He does all the accounts and collects the money from the members.
210
DEVICES OWNED
Of necessity, John has had to learn many skills rapidly, in
Mobile Phone - 5 months
order to support his family. Since the nature of his work
Monthly Rental
is irregular, he is anxious about his children’s future.
INR 50/-
Nonetheless, he prefers to be self-employed and relies
on his strong social network for information about work
opportunities. He is happy being a family man and being
able to support certain indulgences like taking the family to
the movies once or twice a month.
WORK PRACTICE
John is a member of a balloon sellers’ association .The
association is a group of 20 people who live at different
locations in and around Bangalore and keep each other
informed about the upcoming events, fairs and festive
processions.
A balloon seller buys trinkets and balloons on the evening
of the event from a particular shop. The money spent is
John’s Communication Map
Trade Group Members | Kolar Gold Fields
taken as a loan on a per-day basis. The purchased articles are
Fairs in Nearby Towns
then mounted on a frame, which is carried to the fair. If the
event is at a distance, the next morning an auto rickshaw is
hired to transport the frame to the bus by which the balloon
Fairs in Nearby Villages
sellers will travel and the frame is stored on the roof of the
bus.
Usually the evening ends with all the goods having been sold
and the loan is returned the next day. During the off-season
(especially the monsoon months), there is no fixed work.
John is then dependent on the type of work available at the
F r ie n d s | B a n g a lo r e
start of each day. Anything that can earn him Rs. 100 a day is
acceptable. Usually, he gets some kind of mending work, like
repairing cycles and stoves.
C lie n t s | B a n g a lo r e
F a ir s in B a n g a lo r e
211
Annual Expenses Model
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
John’s network consists mainly of his friends,
the balloon sellers association members and
some of his regular customers.
BUSINESS MODEL
INR
EURO
association members every day. Calls from
regular customers are occasional, generally
EXPENSES
Purchase of Stock-in-Trade
INR 500 * 20 days * 6 months
Travel for Balloon Selling
INR 50 * 20 days * 6 months
6,000
101.69
Phone
INR 100 * 12 months
1,200
20.34
Share of Family Expenses
INR 500 * 12 months
6,000
101.69
Total Annual Expenses
60,000 1016.95
73,200 1240.68
INCOME
212
He makes and receives calls from the
Average Annual Balloon Sales
INR 700 * 20 days * 6 months
Side Repair Income
INR 100 * 15 days * 6 months
Side Accounting Income
INR 150 * 12 months
84,000 1423.73
9,000
152.54
1,800
30.51
Total Seasonal Income
94,800 1606.78
ANNUAL PROFIT
Total Annual Sales
94,800 1606.78
Total Annual Expenses
Net Seasonal Profit or Loss
73,200 1240.68
21,600 366.10
once in two weeks. He calls his friends
once in two days.
SOCIO - ECONOMIC IMPACT
The chart reveals that John’s challenge is to balance his job as a balloon seller with
other odd jobs. Balloon selling is much more lucrative than his other occupations.
John needs to optimize this while leaving himself available to take up other jobs
on the days when balloon selling is not an option. This ability to work at several
things is very valuable and impacts his annual income substantially.
The phone has helped him in planning his day’s work in a number of ways.
Being contactable, he is able to increase the number of earning days (a). Now he
can change his plans and switch between different fairs on the same day, after
confirming locations where the sales are high. John has started exploring fairs
outside Bangalore because he is now confident about such excursions. The phone
has also enabled him to preserve his small clientele that asks for his repairing
service.
The phone has widened his scope to plan ahead and make on-the-spot profitable
changes to his schedule.
213
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Aditya Dev Sood
Aditya Dev Sood is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS). He has received doctorates
in Anthropology and in Sanskrit Philology from the University of Chicago. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and has
received several academic fellowships, awards and distinctions, graduating summa cum laude from the University of
Michigan.
Sood is the author of the CKS Guide to ICTs for Development (2002). At CKS he has directed a number of projects
involving user research, new product concepting, user experience and service design, and organizational innovation
management. He conceived the ‘Used in India’ initiative, a multi-year CKS research program which explores the
cultural salience of audiovisual technologies in India. Its findings have been exhibited around the world and included
in the Planning Commission’s Report on Creative Industries. Sood has produced several editions of the world famous
Doors of Perception Conferences in India from 2003 – 2007. He frequently speaks on issues relating to technology,
design, development and social research at academic and industry forums.
Center for Knowledge Societies
The Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS) is the world’s leading research, design and innovation company specializing
in emerging technologies for emerging economies. CKS has worked with the world’s leading handset manufacturers,
equipment manufacturers, operators and mobile solutions providers. It has also worked on the design of remote
financial services and automotive media.
CKS field staff is conversant with informal citizens, elite subjects and low income groups in both urban and rural
contexts. The company has also pioneered new investigative field research techniques for working with communities
and individuals who may not enjoy complete or continuous access to media, communications, electricity and other
forms of infrastructure. Through these techniques its staff is able to conceptualize and develop innovative products
and services that harness the new possibilities of media, communications and technology.
CKS has offices at Bangalore, Bombay and New Delhi in India. It has also created a global research partnership spanning
China, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt, through which it produces a series of Emerging Economy
Reports with a focus on design and innovation. The offices and studios of the Center for Knowledge Societies serve as
global hubs for those interested in social research, technology, design, education and development.
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The Mobile Development Report was commissioned by Nokia’s Corporate Relations, Responsibility and Community Involvement Team.
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www.cks.in
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The Mobile Development Report offers a careful analysis of the social dynamics of mobile phone usage among urban
and rural users from lower income backgrounds. It uses extensive qualitative case studies, rather than quantitative
data, to explore the role that mobile phones play in the everyday lives of end users. These snapshots provide new
insight into the ways in which new products, protocols and services could be designed to enhance the everyday lives
of new rural adopters of mobile phones. New kinds of welfare and social services are proposed, in this study, on the
basis of field findings.
The electronic version of this report is available at: www.cks.in/mdr